All We Stand To Lose
by Emma Arthur
Summary: Three weeks after Clarice left, Marcos and Lorna show up together at the Morlocks' door and beg for her to listen to them. A lot has happened, in three weeks. John-centered dark AU.
1. Chapter 1

[description of a meltdown/panic attack, mentions of injuries]

Am I really starting yet another story? Yes I am. I didn't mean to start writing it, but there it is.

This posting is a bit rushed because I really wanted to have the first chapter out before the next episode airs. I only have about half of a chapter written after that, though for once I pretty much know where I'm going with this story.

I'll warn you right here that it will be dark. Darker than anything else I've written for this show. Don't come here for sweet Thunderblink scenes.

* * *

"What are you doing here?"

"I need to talk to Clarice," Marcos says. He and Lorna have stood uncomfortably in the tunnels, held at gunpoint, for over fifteen minutes before Erg finally showed up, with Glow in tow. He likes to keep them waiting.

"I thought she made it clear she doesn't want to talk to you," Erg says, annoyance clear in his deep voice.

"It's important. Please."

Erg starts shaking his head and retreating away, but Glow catches his arm. She meets Marcos's eyes briefly.

"Wait, there's something really wrong, isn't there?" she asks.

"It's about John," Marcos nods.

"Then that's one more reason Blink will want nothing to do with it," Erg says. "They're not together anymore. Stop coming down here."

"No, she left him, I remember," Marcos spits out. "But I think she's going to want to hear this."

"So I should let you and your little terrorist girlfriend in, risk my people, all so you can talk to Blink?"

Lorna tenses at the insult, but she doesn't comment. Marcos turns to Glow. "Just tell her, please. We need to meet. Wherever she wants."

"Come on," Erg growls, shaking off Glow's hand. She nods at Marcos with a sad smile, the brand on her face briefly catching the light.

"Who is she?" Lorna asks once all of the Morlocks have disappeared back into the shadows. It's the first time she's come down there, and Marcos hesitated to bring her, but he doesn't think he can get through to Clarice on his own. Not anymore, not without exploding. Or breaking down in tears.

Too much has happened in the last few weeks.

"She's one of the mutants you broke out of the mental hospital," he explains. "We brought most of them down here."

The one good thing is that Lorna and him have had time to talk, to resolve some of their issues. They're not arguing constantly or sniping at each other anymore.

"She likes you," Lorna remarks, but there's neither worry nor jealousy in her voice.

"Perhaps," Marcos shrugs. "But she chose to stay here with the Morlocks, so it doesn't matter."

"We need to go back," Lorna says. "I don't know how long Lauren can keep John under control."

Marcos nods, looking sadly at the direction Erg and Glow disappeared in. "We'll come back tomorrow, then," he says to the empty air. The Morlocks always have someone watching, Clarice told him. "Same time."

* * *

Glow is waiting for them the next day, alone.

"Blink−Clarice will see you," she announces. "Follow me."

Marcos and Lorna look at each other, then nod and let her lead the way.

"Where are we going?" Marcos asks.

"Same place you've been before. She's waiting for you."

"Why couldn't she come herself?"

Glow stops and looks at him directly.

"Erg couldn't be sure you wouldn't just try to snatch her away," she says.

Marcos rolls his eyes. "Clarice is an adult. She made the decision to come down here, we're not here to _kidnap_ her."

"I know," Glow nods. "But she's not...certain of where she stands with you right now."

"Right," Lorna mutters. "She's afraid of me."

"Maybe. Or maybe she doesn't know what you all think of her."

"She's refusing to talk to us!" Marcos groans. "How many time have I been down here?"

"Too many," comes a voice behind them. Marcos jumps and turns to see Clarice standing at the tunnel intersection they've just passed. "That's the problem. Can you blame me for thinking you don't want to let me make my own choices? You've been pursuing Lorna and Andy for what, ten months now?"

Marcos looks her up and down. She's wearing the same clothes she did when she left, though they look mostly clean. She's already paler than usual from not seeing the light of day. Her eyes widen slightly as she takes them in.

"Andy is a child, and there was Dawn. You're an adult and you've made your decision. We're not here to convince you to come back."

"I hope you wouldn't bring _Lorna_ if you were," Clarice says, disgust in her voice. "Why are you here?"

"It's about John."

"I see. So you're not here to make me come back, you're here to make me feel guilty for leaving John. You−" she gestures to Lorna "−should at least know there's no point."

"Because you don't care?" Marcos spits out.

Lorna shift uncomfortably beside him. "No," she says slowly. "Because nothing we can tell her will make her feel worse than she already does."

Clarice looks away, swallowing. Then she takes a deep breath and raises her head high.

"What happened to you?" she asks.

It takes Marcos a moment to even figure out what she's talking about, he's so rattled by what just transpired. But Clarice motions toward Lorna's arm, still in a sling with bandages peeking out of her sleeve, and to the large gash on the side of his own face.

"It's a long story," Marcos sighs.

"It has anything to do with what you want to tell me about John?"

"Everything," Lorna says. "But as Marcos said, it's a long story. If you want to hear it, we'd better go somewhere we can sit."

Feeling her sway slightly, Marcos slips an arm around her waist. "You okay?" he murmurs in her ear.

Lorna nods. "I'm good."

"Fine," Clarice says. "Come."

She leads them into the same room−if it's even possible to call it a room−where Erg held the branding ceremony. Marcos closes his eyes briefly at the memory, the smell of burnt flesh coming back to his nose, but now it just smells like sewers. Which is only marginally better.

Glow makes a move to attract his gaze. "I'll be over there if you need me," she says, gesturing to one of the tents scattered across the floor.

Marcos looks around him. There are mutants everywhere, immersed in their activities. He notices Erg standing not far from them, observing them, a frown on his face.

"Sit down," Clarice says, indicating an empty table.

"So this is where you live now," Lorna states.

Her tone is not unkind, but Clarice bristles anyway. "It's not as luxurious as the Inner Circle Headquarters, I'm sure."

"I'm not welcome there anymore," Lorna answers.

"Ah. So you've outed yourself. How is that working for you?"

"As you can see, not so well. But it was for the best."

"So you're just, what, back together? Just like that?" Clarice asks. She wants to sound sarcastic, but there's an edge to her tone, something Marcos can't quite identify.

"No, not just like that," he says. "But I'm not sure that's any of your business."

"You're the ones who came down here wanting to talk to me."

Once again, there's something off in her hostility.

"So, what's that story? Where's John?"

"Currently, in your−his apartment," Marcos answers.

"Is he okay?" There. Now Marcos can hear the hint of anguish clearly.

Marcos and Lorna look at each other.

"No. But we'd better start at the beginning."

* * *

 _Three weeks earlier._

"So you went out on your own and took an enormous risk without talking to anyone _again_?" John resists, barely, slamming his hand on the Strucker's living room table. "That's what you're telling me?"

Caitlin and Reed look at each other. John can hear−see−Lauren in her room, sitting on her bed with her head in her hands, pretending not to hear them arguing.

"John, we did it to help. I know you're in a bad place right now−" Caitlin starts.

"This isn't about me," John growls. "The last time you went to see your brother, Marcos and I had to rescue you. What made you think it would be different this time?"

"Danny's a good man−"

"Who sold you out! Caitlin, I'm−obviously−all for securing us human allies, but you can't just do that kind of move without talking about it first! Unless you've already decided you're done with us?"

"No, of course not!" Caitlin exclaims, but she doesn't even sound convincing. "We're just trying to help!"

"Well getting yourselves arrested is not going to help us!"

"Say the man we had to rescue from Purifiers three days ago," Reed mutters.

John opens his mouth to retort, and finds himself speechless. This is a hit far below the belt.

"Reed−" Caitlin puts a hand on her husband's arm, but he shakes her off.

"You've been getting more and more reckless, John. We can all see it. And now with Clarice gone−"

John closes his eyes and wills himself not to explode. The mention of Clarice hurts more than shotgun pellets hitting his chest.

"And you've been hiding from this fight, from your own powers, for how long?" he hisses.

"It's not the same, my power is too dangerous! I can't afford to let it run wild!"

"If you ever want to get out of this situation, you need to train!" John does explode this time. He's been standing there listening to the Strucker's little worries for too long, and they won't even hear what he has to say. He's been trying to convince Reed to learn to control his mutation for weeks. "Your power is destructive, and painful, only because it's been repressed for so long. You can't keep ignoring it!"

"But Madeline Riesman said−" Reed starts, meekly.

"That woman wanted to wipe mutants out of existence! Are you going to believe anything she said?"

"She said Reed would die without the treatment," Caitlin interjects.

"She also tried to use _Lauren_ 's DNA for her own purpose," John shakes his head. "How do you know she was even honest with you?"

"Maybe he's right," Caitlin turns to Reed. "We _don't_ know. We've been working under the assumption that she actually wanted to help, but−"

"Caitlin, my mutation is too dangerous to risk going off the treatment," Reed says.

"Every mutation can be dangerous if you don't train them!" John shouts, exasperated. "You know what? It doesn't matter. Do whatever you want with your life, but don't come to me if it goes wrong and you start destroying everything around you."

"John−"

"No. I'm going to go do some training now, I'll be in the junkyard if you want to join me. Figure it out. I'm done trying to do what's best for everyone."

He slams the door on the way out, hard enough that it will probably be damaged. He can't deal with all this crap anymore. Not when the Underground is in shambles. It's only them left to stop the Inner Circle now, and their personal issues can't be allowed to interfere. Including his own.

John has been trying to get his mind off Clarice all day, but nothing he's done has managed to make the hole inside him hurt less. It's like a whole part of him has been ripped away. It's different from the grief-filled world he evolved in for months after he lost Pulse, or the strange, painful emptiness that Dreamer left behind. Clarice isn't dead, for one thing, and John is truly grateful for that. If living down in the tunnels with the Morlocks can spare her life in this fight, then John will encourage it with his whole being.

Except that the price might just be his own sanity. He hadn't realized, how much he's been relying on Clarice to drag him out of the obsessive guilt trips and tunnel vision moments he keeps falling into, but he's not sure he can do this without her.

Scratch that, he knows he can't do it without her.

John starts when he realizes he's in front of their apartment. He didn't mean to come here. Hell, he specifically avoided it after the spiral of memories he drowned in last night.

But Clarice's presence is everywhere, not just in the apartment. It's outside in the corridor, walking alongside him, a ghost of the past. It's in the junkyard he spent most of the night in, taking cars apart instead of sleeping. Even though she barely ever went there.

John almost chokes when he opens the door. There's her scent, her trace, on every wall and inch of the floor, on every object. He knows from experience that it's not going to start fading for months. He can't be here.

He rushes into the bathroom, heaving violently into the toilet. It's too much, her presence that was so comforting just yesterday morning now overloading his senses. Purple hair flash around his vision, the smell of his own vomit overpowered by her shampoo. John grabs the bottle of shampoo and throws it out of the room, but the smell is not coming from there.

Tears running down his face, John closes his eyes tightly and presses his hands over his ears. It doesn't stop anything. Not the noise of the neighbors, of the street outside, of Caitlin and Reed he can still hear arguing from here. Not the glare of the lamp, when his hearing provides the high pitched hum of the electricity running through it. Not Clarice's hands around him, hurting him, painful against his insensitive skin like they've never been in real life.

Now they are agony.

John rocks back and forth on the cold floor he doesn't feel, squeezed between the toilet and the wall. His whole chest is on fire, but he's stopped caring about that a while ago. The knot, the hole, the whatever that hurts so much inside him is growing too big, engulfing him.

So he sits there, and wishes for the bliss of numbness.


	2. Chapter 2

Here is chapter two! Now it's officially an AU, so it's going to stray wildly from where the show is going.

Enjoy, and tell me what you think!

* * *

John wakes up to Zingo licking his face. He's sprawled out on the bathroom floor, his head against the base of the toilet. He doesn't remember falling asleep.

A quick check of his watch tells him he's slept for about an hour. His eyes are painful and gritty from crying himself to sleep, and his chest is still awfully sore, both from the wounds Turner gave him and the cracked rib and foot-large bruise he got for punching Erg.

 _You want to go for a walk?_ he tries to ask Zingo, but his voice just won't come. He groans instead, and pushes her off his face.

It hits him the moment he makes it upright. For one minute, he forgot that Clarice is gone.

The apartment still feels the same, with her presence everywhere. Everything he touches has a bit of her on it, and all her things are still there. Her toothbrush, on the sink. Her shampoo, in the shower−no, he threw it across the room earlier. The hair tie around his wrist is one of hers.

John doesn't have the heart to remove it. Instead, he pets Zingo and leads her to the front door, grabbing her leash. He has to get out of here.

He's fairly sure by now that Reed is not going to try training anytime soon, so it doesn't matter that John is not in the junkyard like he told him. He destroyed too many cars last night anyway. His knuckles are raw and his arms covered in small cuts, below the pellet wounds. He needs to change his bandages, too, but it's too much to think about right now.

Instead, he heads to his car. His and Clarice. Damn. She really is everywhere, for someone who chose to leave.

John opens the back door and Zingo obediently jumps in, settling on the seat.

"John? Where are you going?"

John turns to see Marcos approaching him. He sighs. His friend wasn't here last night when John couldn't face being alone in the apartment, instead out talking to Lorna in a dark parking lot. And now that John actually wants to be left alone, Marcos is going to try to get him to talk.

"Back to the explosion site," he says. "I want to try and see if I missed something. We need to know for sure that they're all dead."

"There were bodies," Marcos says.

"It was an office building, in the middle of the day. Other people were there."

That's what's the most awful thing about what the Inner Circle is doing. They don't care at all about collateral damage. Human lives. Mutant lives.

"John, you don't need to impose yourself that. There are other ways, we can check the coroner's report−"

"The bodies were unrecognizable. I have to know."

"Then I'm coming with you."

John opens his mouth to protest, but Marcos just walks up to the car and gets in. The driver seat, no less. John rolls his eyes and follows suit.

"Are we just going to spend the whole ride in silence?" Marcos asks after a while.

"I was planning on going alone," John shrugs. "I'm okay with that."

"John, we need to talk about all this."

"About what, you finding your girlfriend again, or mine leaving?" John tries for sarcasm, but he's taken aback by the force at which even a casual mention of Clarice overturns his stomach. Or maybe it's because he hasn't eaten in over twenty-four hours and slept for all of one hour on his bathroom floor, but still.

"Both," Marcos says, not unkindly. "I know it's hard, John. Actually, I know just how hard it−"

"None of that matters," John interrupts him. He really, really doesn't want to have that conversation. "We need to figure out where we go from here. With what happened yesterday..."

"John, you're allowed to take a moment to−"

"I _can't_ think about anything else, okay? I lost _five_ friends yesterday, people who were the very foundation of the Underground. I won't let the Inner Circle and the Purifiers destroy _everything_ I love."

Marcos bites his lip and concentrates on the road. "Okay," he says. "So what do we do?"

"Clearly gathering our people is just exposing them. How did the Inner Circle even know about that meeting?"

"I don't know. But you're right, it's too risky to do it again. They must have been told somehow."

"So on top of everything else, we have a spy," John sighs. "Perfect."

"We're here," Marcos says, parking the car in the same place as yesterday.

John is immediately assaulted with pictures. It's an odd mix of his own memories, still raw, and the traces they left. It's strange, seeing himself punching Erg from the outside, getting thrown back.

He's hit by how Clarice doesn't even make a move to go to him, even though he's lying motionless. He feels a surge of something, a different kind of pain in his chest. Is it that, the next stage of grief? Is he going to get angry at her for leaving, now?

He's got better things to do. The hole inside him isn't just Clarice-shaped. It's the whole of it, the Underground, everything they've built, seeing his friends lose faith one by one… It's Evangeline and the others, gone along with Sonya, with Pulse, with all the friends he's already lost. It's the desperation that's been growing ever since Atlanta, the guilt devouring his insides.

It's the feeling, deep inside, that the fight is already lost.

John never had the illusion that he would live to see his battle end, to see the end of the tunnel, the peace he's always dreamed of. But now he's starting to understand that he might well live to see his cause be defeated and have to watch the aftermath.

He stumbles out of the car, disturbed.

"Are you okay?" Marcos asks.

John just gives him a look, and turns away. He doesn't dare go further than the edge of the construction site they've parked on, but it's a stretch for his still shaky senses. Turner's torture messed him up more than he wants to admit.

He crouches down to put his hand on the ground, to stabilize himself as he reaches out. The sweep he did yesterday was quick and sloppy, distracted by the sirens and the noise all around. The building was still on fire then, so he just looked for moving bodies, and familiar faces.

Now John has the opportunity to get more, if he could concentrate on it without his mind shooting back to yesterday, without seeing Clarice and Erg from the corners of his eyes. He shakes his head, trying to get rid of those images and to focus on the ones from the burnt down building.

He growls under his breath.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm getting visual snow, it's distracting," John says.

"What?"

"My ears are still ringing. From the music."

"The music?"

John shakes his head. Right. He hasn't told anyone about what happened in the Purifier's basement.

"Turner. He had these headphones. With really loud music. Made me listen for hours."

Marcos closes his eyes briefly.

"God. I didn't know. You're still feeling the effects?"

"Just over-sensitivity," John answers. "Like during a migraine. And my ears are ringing, which is really annoying whenever I try to track."

"Because you get visual snow. Right," Marcos nods. "Man, your powers are weird."

"Says the guy with glowing blood."

"Point taken. But still."

"Can't disagree with you," John says. "Dammit! Everything's distorted, I can't see properly."

"That's why you wanted to come back? Because you think you might have missed something?"

"Yes. I was too...rattled, yesterday."

"Is there anything I can do?"

John shakes his head and concentrates again. The traces are a day old, but they're strong. An explosion like that makes ripples in the surface of space, it affects everything in the surroundings. John can pinpoint the exact place where it started, where some kind of shockwave hit the building.

A shockwave made by a mutant. It's confused, but he can see him. See them, all three of them, the team Lorna talked about.

Inside the building. John needs to go further, directly into the explosion, see who was where when it happened, but his brain keeps dragging him back outside.

When he finally gets in, he understands why. His brain is trying to protect itself. The explosion makes him stagger and fall to his knees, like he's inside himself and can feel it. The blast hits him, and suddenly he can't breathe.

"John?"

Evangeline is there, reacting even before the blast, standing up from her seat in alarm. John wants to go to her, shield her, shield them all. Only he's not really there, is he?

Is he? Everything around him is burning. Evangeline screams, and dark smoke comes out of her mouth. Her hands turn red. Someone else is yelling. _"Get out now!"_ John doesn't move. He's cemented to the ground. He tries to take a breath, but only manages to inhale smoke.

The heat is stiffing. _"Get out! It's a trap!"_ Neophyte phases through another wall, but even he can't escape the blast. _"Thunderbird, we have to go now!"_ Another brother down, body broken and burnt on the floor, unmoving. Fire. Blood.

"John!"

Pain sears through John's back, and he chokes. It's all gone. They're all gone. There's nothing left of the old building, only the smoke. Only the pain.

"John! Snap out of it!"

John gasps, and feels fur against his face. Zingo. Marcos, Marcos's voice calling for him. Not Afghanistan.

"You back with me, brother?"

John nods slowly, trying to get his breathing back under control. He hasn't opened his eyes, but that has never been an obstacle for his mutation. He runs his hand through Zingo's fur, focusing on her. She rubs her face against his.

His back twinges with long-forgotten pain.

"I think Evangeline might have gotten out," John says when he feels like he can speak again. "She was shifting when the blast happened. In full dragon form, she would have made it out."

"Are you sure?"

John shakes his head. "I can't see well enough."

"Well, don't try again, okay? If she made it, she'll find her way back to us."

"I'm not sure we have time to wait for that," John mutters.

The trip back is hard. John hasn't had a flashback this intense in months, maybe years. He tries to close his mind against the sensory aggression of the streets they pass, but he's too shaky to have any control over his abilities. And that damn ringing never stops.

John's head is swimming by the time Marcos pulls over by their building. The exhaustion and lack of food is catching up with him, especially since his body is nowhere near recovered from a day of torture and another of heavy sedation. But he still steels himself to go and walk Zingo, pushing Marcos away until his friend gives up.

If he ends up curled up in the space between two smashed cars, his arms around his dog and his shoulders shaking, well, no one is there to witness it.

* * *

"How's John holding up?" Lorna asks Marcos later that day.

Even though they take all the possible precautions, it's dangerous, to keep meeting like this. But they can't help it. Now that they can see each other again, that they're starting to let go of the anger and the pain, they can't get enough of each other.

"Not good," Marcos says. "Something else happened yesterday. Clarice left."

"What? Why?"

Marcos shrugs, reigning in his anger. "I guess she's tired of fighting, or something. John won't tell me what she said, and she didn't even say goodbye to the rest of us. She just up and left after we found out about Evangeline and the others."

"John and Clarice...they've been together, right?"

"Yeah. Since the day you left. They had a bit of a rough time at first, because John was still mourning for Sonya, but they've been living together since we got to D.C."

"Damn," Lorna mutters. "I know I did the same thing to you−"

"Or worse."

"−or worse, but I can't _believe_ that girl. Is that what she does, bail on people?"

"You don't know her," Marcos sighs. "I know she bailed once before, but she had a good reason. I just don't get why she left like this."

"Because the world is crumbling around us?"

"Since when is that new?"

Both of them laugh nervously, bitterly.

"It does feel worse, though," Marcos admits. "John was hopeful that the Underground summit would change something, but we're at the end of our rope here."

"I want to see him," Lorna says. "We haven't talked at all. I need to talk to him."

"Lorna, it's too dangerous for you to spend so much time−"

"John's my best friend, Marcos. Or used to be. I have to do it."

"Fine," Marcos relents. "But I have to warn you that he's...unhinged."

"Worse than after we lost Pulse?"

Marcos shrugs. "I don't know. It's different."

"Let me come back with you," Lorna says. "I'm not expected anywhere until tonight, so no one should even notice I'm gone."

"Okay," Marcos says.

To be honest, he's relieved at not having to deal with John alone.

* * *

"Where are you going with all this? Why are you telling me this?"

Marcos shifts uncomfortably. He only intended to tell Clarice as much as she absolutely needs to understand the situation, but he got carried away.

John's pain, his descent into hell, has been a heavy burden to carry on his own. Lorna helped, but their relationship is nothing like it once was. Maybe he just wants to see that spark of understanding in Clarice's eyes, that will tell him he's not alone.

But Clarice left exactly for this reason, didn't she? Because she couldn't watch John kill himself.

"Sorry," Marcos says. "You're right, you don't need to hear all this."

"I think maybe she does," Lorna shakes her head. "They all do," she adds, indicating the few other mutants who have started to gather around them, Glow at their lead. "This is about the end of the Underground. This is about the fight we're losing. You don't get to turn away from this."

She's looking straight at Clarice by the end, her gaze fierce.

"You did," Clarice retorts.

"I left you. I left Marcos, and believe me, I regret that. But I didn't turn away from fighting for mutants."

"We're fighting here too," Glow intervenes, before Clarice can say the clearly less than civil thing on her mind.

"You're fighting for yourselves," Marcos says, more bitter than he meant to be. "It's honorable, but it's _not_ the same thing."


	3. Chapter 3

[past addiction & drug cravings, PTSD, unhealthy eating behavior, blood & injuries, canonical death, mentions of vomiting]

New chapter! This isn't the Thunderblink fluff we all need after the last episode. This story honestly gets darker with every chapter, and that's not about to end. But there's that Lorna/John discussion!

* * *

"Are we here to discuss politics?" Clarice asks, her voice dripping sarcasm. "Because if we are, I might as well remove myself from this conversation right now."

Marcos shares a look with Lorna. He expected Clarice's resistance, coming down there. This is her territory now, and they're invading it. But he hoped he could get through to her, get her to see why they need her.

Maybe he should have just started with the end of the story. But now that he's started, he feels like he can't stop. All the events of the last few weeks are stumbling over each other in his mind. Chaos. Maybe telling it all in order will help him make sense of all of it.

"You're right," he says, not arguing any further with Clarice. "We're here to tell you a story."

* * *

John doesn't know for sure how he dragged himself and Zingo back to the apartment, but day has turned to night when someone knocks on the door, and he's a mess. He's been hovering for hours in that strange state of exhaustion where his body is too wired to go to sleep, but too tired to do anything else.

That's probably why, when he answers the door, his brain hasn't yet computed who's behind it. Marcos is the one who knocked, but he's not alone.

 _Lorna?_ John blinks, barely able to tell if she's actually there or not. He opens his mouth, but no words come out.

They stare at each other for a while, John tired and stumbling and overwhelmed and Lorna hesitant, tentative, the opposite of her usual confidence. In the end, Marcos grumbles and pushes past John into the apartment. Lorna follows suit, carefully stepping around John without touching him, never meeting his eyes.

"What are you doing here?" John finally asks, once they've invaded his living room and taken over the couch.

"I wanted to talk to you," Lorna says.

John sighs and leans against the closed door. "Okay," he says.

"No. I _wanted_ to talk to you, but you're obviously not in any state to talk." Lorna stands up from the couch and crosses the room, approaching him like she would a wounded animal.

John hates that his first instinct is to recoil. He crosses his arms over his chest instead. It doesn't quite give off the message he wants to pass− _I'm fine, leave me alone_ −because Lorna comes even closer, until she's nearly touching him.

"John−"

"You don't get to come here after _nine months_ and pretend you care," John growls. It doesn't sound anywhere as threatening as he wishes it did. But anger is better than all the other feelings he wants to stamp onto.

Lorna freezes before she can touch his arm. She lets her arm fall back to her side.

"You're right, I don't," she says, swallowing. "Though I do care. But I'll go if you want me to."

John wants, really wants, to run away right now. She's too close, too _present_ , and Marcos looks at them with worry from the other end of the room and it's too much, and the apartment still overwhelmingly smells like Clarice and it's _too much_. He can't deal with all that at once, he can't deal with _anything_ right now.

But Lorna's here. More _here_ than she's been in so long. In front of him. Talking to him. And God, his chest feels too tight and the air around him feels _solid_ and nothing _else_ feels solid and he runs. Not far, he pushes Lorna away as gently as he can right now and stumbles and ends up in the bathroom again, on his knees heaving into the toilet. There's nothing in his stomach to come up, so he coughs violently instead.

This time Lorna gives up all attempt to leave him space. She runs after him and holds his hair away from his face, though it's useless, and hugs him tightly when he finally stops coughing. John almost involuntarily buries his face in her shoulder, until her hair blocks out the glare of the light and the smell of Clarice's shampoo and the noise of the fridge. For the first time in over a day, he breathes.

Breathing hurts.

"Come on," Lorna whispers, tugging on his arm. John lets her drag him to his feet−she uses his belt buckle to help, because he's far to heavy for her−and guide him to his bedroom. His and Clarice's. His.

Clarice is gone.

John sits down on the bed, and brings his legs up to put his arms around them, despite how much any pressure on his chest hurts. Pressure is good. Physical pain is good.

He closes his eyes in shame when confronted with Marcos's helpless look, with Lorna's shining eyes. He can barely believe himself how far he's fallen. He used to be so self-disciplined, so controlled. Once upon a time, he would never have allowed anyone to see him in this state.

When did the burden on his shoulders become too heavy to hide? Yesterday, when Clarice kissed him and said goodbye? Three days ago, when Turner made him stare down the barrel of a shotgun and wait for the end? Or three months ago, when Evangeline hammered home the truth he'd tried so hard to hide from?

Or was it the day Lorna left, taking with her what was left of his hope and of his home? The day they hit the Trask labs, and Sonya didn't come back? The day he held Gus's hand as he died?

Last time it became too much…

The thought comes unbidden and surprises John in its strength. Last time he found a way out. A way to quiet the pain and his mind and to hide from the guilt. He's been through this before.

The doctor, the one who first wrote him a prescription, called it _survivor's guilt_. But John doesn't feel guilty for surviving. Surviving is what he does.

He feels guilty for getting everyone else killed.

"John?"

John twitches. His thoughts have taken him down the usual path of guilt, pain, self-hatred, need. _Need._ It hurts physically, like the first day.

The day Evangeline flushed his pills down the toilet and chained him to a bed.

But Evangeline is gone, too.

John groans and bites, hard, on his finger. It's not painful enough to work. He goes to push on his injured chest−it might as well be good for _something_ −but something provides resistance.

John opens his eyes, blinking. It's Lorna's hand on his, pushing hard against his strength.

"Raise your arms," she says, and John obeys without thinking. Lorna pulls his shirt over his head. She doesn't say anything else, but she knows where his mind is. She always knows. Knew.

"You've bled through," she says. "I'm just gonna cut the bandages, it will be easier."

Marcos comes into John's field of vision then, carrying medical supplies. "Shouldn't Caitlin do this?" he asks.

"Do you want Caitlin to do this?" Lorna asks John. John can barely remember the argument he had with the Struckers this morning−was it even this morning?−but he shakes his head. He can't handle Caitlin. Even Lorna and Marcos are too much.

Or maybe they're okay as long as he doesn't think about it too hard.

Lorna cleans his wounds and dresses them again, telling him about every step in detail. John feels her falter slightly at the sight of his chest−she saw it before, when she came close to him just long enough to take the lead pellets out of his skin, but she was focused on something else then−but he doesn't react. He doesn't flinch at the pain. His mind is too far gone for that.

He welcomes it, instead.

Once she's done, even cleaning the myriad of small cuts on his hands and arms from ripping cars apart all night, she guides him gently into lying down on his back.

"John," she whispers to get his attention.

John tiredly focuses on her.

"You're here," he murmurs.

Lorna doesn't quip about how she's been here for nearly an hour. She would have, once.

"I can't stay for long," she says instead.

John looks away.

"But I can stay for a while more," she adds. "You need to sleep."

That's how John finds himself sandwiched between Lorna and Marcos on his bed. He doesn't know why he lets them. It's probably the first time they've been in the same bed since Lorna left, and yet they're giving him that.

They've done it before, once. After they thought Pulse had died, when John didn't sleep for days and worked himself into a migraine so bad the pain made him scream.

Today Lorna hangs onto his arm and buries her face against his shoulder and Marcos awkwardly holds his neck and John falls asleep, finally.

* * *

He wakes up screaming.

That's another thing he hasn't done in a while. He woke Clarice up a handful of times with his nightmares, but he's long learned to muffle the noise. He couldn't afford waking everyone else, back at the bank. Even if everyone else woke _him_ , a hundred times a night.

But this dream was almost as much a flashback as a dream. It had Evangeline and his Marine brothers and Clarice and Lorna and everything exploded and he couldn't protect them. John would already be huddling in a corner if it wasn't for Marcos holding him back.

Lorna is gone.

John wonders if she was ever here.

It takes him a long time, longer than usual, to get his breathing under control. The nightmares that mix the different parts of his life, the different traumas, are always the worse. They feel real, so real. Every time he blinks, all he can see is Lorna kneeling in front of him, blood gushing out of her chest.

"She had to go back before anyone noticed she was gone," Marcos says, and John realizes he's said Lorna's name aloud. "But she'll be by again later."

John just nods and lies back. He doesn't want to go back to sleep, but his whole body hurts. That night in the junkyard didn't do it any good.

"John−"

John turns his head to look at Marcos, but the openness, the vulnerability in his expression is painful. He looks away.

"I don't know how to help," Marcos says, and he somehow manages not to make it sound like a question. "But I'm not going to leave."

"She said that too," John mutters. "And then she left."

"Clarice?"

John shrugs. "I told her I was scared of losing her. The other day. I never told her that before."

Marcos sighs.

"Lorna...she used to say that we'd always make it, as long as we were together. I think...it was always obvious to us that you were included in it."

"But she left, too," John says.

He's been beating around the bush with Marcos for nine months, trying to help his friend and swallowing his own feelings in the process. He doesn't have the strength to do that anymore.

"But she left," Marcos repeats.

"And now?"

"I don't know."

"We're a mess, aren't we?"

Marcos laughs, bitterly.

Neither of them goes back to sleep, though it's the middle of the night. They lie side by side, as if waiting for something.

John aches for Clarice, for Lorna, for Gus and Sonya. Worse, he aches for the relief of drugs in his system. It superposes on the still vivid images of his friends, of death and explosions and pain. So much pain. It could take it all away.

He aches, almost as much, for the pain itself. The pain he deserves.

* * *

Lorna knocks on his door again in the morning, this time not bothering to wait for him to answer. Marcos has gone back to his apartment to take a shower, but John has barely moved.

He hasn't slept a wink more, and he feels, if possible, even worse than last night. The cravings haven't gone away, strong enough that he can barely think about anything else, and when he does, his mind just circles back to the explosion. Or to Clarice. Neither of which he wants to think about.

Lorna marches into the room.

"Alright, get up," she orders.

She apparently remembers enough about him not to try to open the blinds on the windows. John sluggishly turns toward her, making no move to sit up.

"John, you can't stay like this. We have work to do."

"Do we?"

John himself hates the hopelessness in his voice. She's right, he knows she is. There may not be much left of the Underground to salvage, but they have to try. He's usually the first to push everyone to act.

Except it's Lorna saying that, here in his bedroom, after she abandoned them.

"John−"

"Don't you get it, Lorna? Everything we built, it's all gone!" John explodes, sitting up brutally. The world becomes a kaleidoscope of blurry, moving colors, but he blinks it away.

Lorna stares at him for a long time in silence.

"That's what I thought, when I left," she says slowly. "But I didn't understand something. This was never about the station, or about the Underground."

"What do you mean?"

" _We_ are still here. As long as this goes on, as long as we're alive, we can fight. That's not gone. We can rebuild."

John looks at her in incredulity, then he laughs. It's like a bark, rough and hoarse and bitter. It hurts his cracked rib, and his throat, and his heart.

"As long as we're together, uh?" he croaks out in between coughs.

Lorna's face falls.

"There is no Underground anymore," John hammers in. "There is no 'us'. We made sure of that, fighting each other."

"John...I know we need to talk, and we will, but thinking like this isn't going to bring us anywhere. We _have_ to fight what the Inner Circle is planning, we have to fight back against the Purifiers. That's why I'm here."

"So just because you suddenly changed your mind and came grovelling back to Marcos, everything is suddenly fine? You're the one who's wanted nothing to do with us for months!"

"I came back to get you out of the Purifier's compound! A situation _you_ put yourself into all on your own!"

"You came because Marcos _begged_ you to," John growls. "And you couldn't even _look_ at me."

He's not even angry. He's long past that, now. What Lorna thinks of him doesn't matter, not really. Yes, it hurts that she didn't even stay long enough to talk to him, but she's right.

He's dug his own grave.

He wants to throw up again. The hole inside him feels like it's growing, digging deeper into his insides with every movement he makes. It smells of ashes.

"John−"

He looks away, and pushes himself up to stand. He sways, his head immediately swimming.

"John, what's wrong?"

Lorna is at his side again, holding him up. John shakes his head, and regrets it.

"When was the last time you ate?"

John blinks, and tries to remember. That would be the soup Clarice made, three nights ago. His instincts were tugging at him too hard to eat the next morning, before they left for the meeting. No wonder he's not feeling well.

"A while," he mutters.

"Come on."

Lorna supports him until he drops onto a chair at the table, and he lets her.

"Let's make some breakfast," she says.

No one has gone shopping in a while, and John isn't much of a cook in any case−though he still beats Clarice by a mile, given that last time she managed to burn pasta _under his supervision_ −so there isn't much food around. But Lorna still manages to find some eggs, and minutes later she has a full plate in front of John.

John chokes it down the best he can, looking anywhere but at Lorna, who's sat in front of him.

"I couldn't look at you because I was too ashamed," she says softly when he puts his fork down. "I failed you. You were my best friend, and we swore to always be there for each other, and I let my stupid failed dreams come between us."

"You didn't fail me," John murmurs. "I'm the one who failed. I'm the one who couldn't be what you needed. What everyone needed."

Lorna lets out a sob. For an instant, it's like they're back at the beginning of all of this, two battle-weary people with an impossible task in front of them.

John stands up brutally, and flees. Lorna angrily dries her tears and folds in on herself.

The moment has passed, and maybe there's too much standing between them now to start again.

* * *

As always, thanks for reading and tell me what you think!


	4. Chapter 4

[self-harming behavior, disordered eating, general self-hatred and depressed thoughts]

* * *

When Marcos comes back, John and Lorna are still each in one corner of the apartment, pretending they're not listening for the other's every move.

"Have you two at least talked?" he asks.

John shrugs dismissively, coming back to sit at the table. "It doesn't matter," he says. "We can work together."

Marcos looks between them for a moment. John can see Lorna shake her head discreetly, as if to encourage Marcos to let it go, and he suddenly hates that already they're treating as if he's the odd one out. He's the one who carried Marcos through months of depression since their breakup, and now they're back together just like that, and he's the one who's unreasonable?

He hates himself even more for thinking like that.

"I think you should go talk to Clarice," Marcos tells John.

"I don't think she'll want to talk to me. She made that clear when she decided to go live in the _sewers_ of all places."

"At least you know where she is! You can do something about this!"

"She made a choice. I have to respect that."

Marcos and Lorna share a look.

"At least I know she's safe," John adds.

"With the guy who makes people take brands?" Lorna snorts.

"This is destroying you," Marcos says quietly.

John groans. "I didn't see it coming," he says. "Not really. I mean−" he trails off.

"You guys fought pretty hard just before you got captured. Clarice left then."

"No. I mean, she was angry, and perhaps she was ready to leave _me_ , but she wasn't ready to stop fighting altogether. No, something's changed."

"What's changed?" Lorna asks.

John shakes his head. "I don't know."

"She got scared," Marcos says. "You didn't see her, when the Purifiers got you. Then we got you back, and you were injured worse than she's ever seen. I think it drove home to her that there's nothing she can do to protect you."

He and Lorna exchange another glance, and John can tell this touches on things between them that they haven't had a chance to talk about. But he's just not capable of really caring for his friends' relationship right now.

"And where she is now, I can't protect her anymore," he sighs. "But she's right. We can't have a relationship based on fear, even when it's fear for each other. Ever since Atlanta, I've been so afraid of losing someone again, of losing _her_..."

* * *

Marcos stops talking when he sees tears running down Clarice's face. The other mutants have stepped back respectfully, sensing that this doesn't concern them, though they're still close enough to hear.

 _Finally,_ he thinks, and then immediately feels guilty for it. But it did something to his heart, to see her so stoic as he narrated just how bad John was after she left. Like she didn't even care. He wondered, really wondered for a moment if maybe she left because she didn't love him anymore.

He reaches out to put his hand on Clarice's, but she removes her hands from the table to wipe her face with her sleeve.

"Sorry," she says, not looking at them. "I just−"

"Whatever you feel about this, it's not us you need to tell," Marcos shakes his head. "I'm not telling you all this to make you feel guilty."

"Then why?" Clarice asks.

"Because it's important to understand what happened after that."

"Okay. Go on then."

"It may have been a mistake, but I still felt that if he just came down here to talk to you, maybe you'd change your mind."

"It was a mistake," Clarice says coolly.

"Maybe," Marcos shrugs, just as cold. "You'll excuse me if I didn't want my best friend to go through the same thing I did."

They've come far enough that Lorna doesn't even flinch beside him. Clarice does. She looks away, hanging her head.

"Anyway, I convinced John to come down here to talk to you. Even if it wasn't to convince you to come back, just to give him some closure and check that you were alright."

Marcos bites his lip then, unsure how to go on.

"He decided to come alone," Lorna takes over. "Said he had to do this on his own."

* * *

"She doesn't want to see you," comes the deep, booming voice, echoed by the tunnels.

John has heard Erg come from far enough not to be surprised when he speaks, though his senses are confused by the fake walls and the bizarre lights. He doesn't turn around.

"Doesn't she?" he responds. "Because I'd like to hear that from her. I don't trust you."

"I'm not going to allow you into my home so you can... _talk_ to your ex."

There's as much, if not more, disdain in Erg's voice as the other day. But there's something more, too. Smugness. He thinks he's won some kind of fight.

John feels his blood boils, but he reins himself in. He's here for a reason.

"Yeah, I got that when you let me run in circles down here for the last two hours."

"Blink made her choice. You've got to accept that."

John smiles, bitterly. "You know what? I do. I accept it. All I want is for her to be safe, and if you can give her that, then I'm happy. But I need to see that she's happy, too. You won't be able to keep your people from this fight forever."

Erg shakes his head. "Let me worry about that."

"I'd be happy to," John says. "But I can't. I can't trust you. You see, Clarice told me about what happens down here. How you had her spying for you, as a condition to helping us. How you made a bunch of people just out of a mental institution take a _brand_ just to stay here. How can I trust that you won't ask her for something in return, for letting her stay with you?"

"So you're accusing me of...what, exactly? Trying to get into her bed?"

"No accusation," John shakes his head. "I'm just...looking out for her."

Erg smirks. "John Proudstar," he spits out. "Thunderbird. So you're really just as hot-headed as they say. Running head first into danger without a plan, now trying to threaten me...it's not wonder Blink wouldn't stay with you. You're just going to get her killed. To get all of your friends killed."

John wishes that didn't go straight to his gut, but denying it would be a lie. It's all he can think about, these days. How he got his friends into this, how they're all going to die because of the decisions he made. He's not going to argue with that. But something in Erg's words, in his protectiveness toward Clarice, doesn't sit right with him.

"You look at me with disdain, like you've somehow won her from me," he says. "But Clarice isn't a prize. She's her own person. You'll learn that soon enough."

"Like you did when she left you?"

Truly enraged this time, John explodes. It's like he's been waiting for this all along, for the final confirmation that Erg isn't going to let him through. For an excuse.

He rams a fist into Erg's smug face, knocking him several feet backward.

This time, he expects the backlash. When it comes, punching him like a right hook in the jaw, he takes it. His head hits the wall violently, but it will barely leave a bruise.

He stands back up, letting Erg walk closer. The second Erg enters his range, he goes at him with another punch in the sternum. He watches the force beam leave the mutant's eye almost greedily.

Pain feels good. Pain he can control, not the hole in his chest. As he slams into the wall again, he smirks at Erg with a 'come at me' gesture, blood running down the side of his mouth.

* * *

"You _fought_ him?" Clarice asks, appalled.

Marcos looks up to see Erg has come closer, listening to Lorna's every word.

"He attacked me," he says.

"You provoked him!" Marcos exclaims. "You knew he was hurting. Did you have to rile him up?"

"He was trying to storm into my home!"

"He just wanted to talk to me," Clarice says.

"And then what? Try to get you to go back with him? Did you _want_ to listen to him ask you that?"

"You didn't let me make that choice."

"I did what I thought was best for you."

Clarice shakes her head. "You may have welcomed me into your home, Erg, but it doesn't mean you get to make my choices for me."

"I made a decision for our community. If I had let him come in here, he would have been able to find his way back anytime with his ability. We can't afford that."

"It's not all," Marcos says, before Clarice can argue anymore.

"What?"

"After John came back beaten up, he was...calmer, somehow. More focused. Like it actually helped him."

"Has he ever talked to you about his...addiction?" Lorna asks, somewhat uncomfortable at the ring of mutants listening to them. John would hate them talking about it so openly with strangers, but he's not in any state to protest right now.

Clarice nods. "A bit. He said Evangeline helped him out of it. Oh my God, did he fall off the wagon because I left?"

"Not exactly. But before Evangeline found him, he was in a fight club. To get enough money for the pills."

"He didn't tell me that."

"He doesn't talk about it," Lorna says.

"But you knew," Clarice states. The edge in her voice is not jealousy, just sadness. "I guess I don't know him as well as I thought after all."

"Did you tell him every little bit of your past?" Marcos asks, annoyed.

"I suppose not," Clarice relents.

"Anyway, when John was fighting, the adrenaline and the pain became almost as much an addiction as the pills," Lorna continues. "There's a reason he keeps such a tight control on himself."

"I've seen him punch plenty of things."

"And he's been going through a lot," Marcos says. "I've been...preoccupied and didn't notice much lately, but I'm honestly amazed he hadn't gone completely off with all that's happened."

"He got a taste of pain as punishment again, in the Purifiers' hands."

"So he came down here looking for more," Erg understands.

"You said he was looking for me?" Clarice asks, surprised.

"The first time, he was."

"The _first time_? He came back?"

"Every morning for five days," Erg answers. Marcos nods at Clarice in confirmation.

* * *

"John?"

John turns around to find Marcos behind him. Marcos recoils in surprise at the sight of his face.

"What the−"

"Hey," John says quietly.

"You were down there again? What are you doing to yourself, brother?" Marcos shakes his head in dismay. "Give me that."

John hands him the piece of gauze he's using to clean the broken skin above his eyebrow. Marcos takes over and starts applying butterfly bandages.

"You saw Clarice at all?"

"No," John mutters.

"So you went down there just to get into a fight. With a guy you can't hurt."

"That's kinda the point."

Marcos sighs and dabs at his jaw. "That's going to bruise."

John shrugs. His left eye is already almost swollen shut from yesterday's fight, and half of his body is on fire. He has never met someone else who could throw him around as efficiently as Erg.

If only the physical pain didn't trigger cravings worse than he's had in years, it would be the perfect way to empty his mind.

"It's about as far from a healthy coping mechanism as you can get, you know," Marcos remarks.

John raises his good eyebrow. "You're going to talk to me about healthy coping mechanisms?"

"Maybe I'm the best person to tell you that it doesn't help on the long term."

"I'm not looking for long term," John says. "Who knows where we'll be in a week?"

"Not a bad point. But still."

"Lorna's back at the Inner Circle?"

Marcos nods. "She can't stay away for too long. She won't be able to spy for us much longer, it's getting too dangerous."

"Did she find anything out?" John asks. "About where they want to hit?"

"Not yet. But she found out something else. The Frosts sisters want Lauren, and they want her badly. They're trying to get to her through her connection to Andy."

"Have you told the Struckers?"

"Not yet."

"Then we need to go do that."

Marcos nods and puts down the first aid kit.

"Any other injuries you need me to look at? How's your chest?"

"It's fine," John answers, running a hand around his collar. His wounds from the shotgun pellets are still bandaged under his shirt, but he won't let Marcos near them again. They should be better than they are by now, and he's pretty sure one of Erg's nastiest hits reopened some of them.

"Alright. You want to go see the Struckers now?"

"The sooner the better, in this case."

"You're right. Let's go."

John stands up painfully, keeping one arm around his middle. He's fairly sure he has another cracked rib, which makes moving difficult, but he ignores it. Marcos watches him with concern, though.

"You sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine," John says again.

Caitlin looks jittery when opens the door. John suddenly remembers their last argument, and wonders if she's actually scared of him.

"What is it?" she asks. Or maybe she's just scared of more bad news. It seems to be all they ever get, these days.

"We wanted to talk to you. Are Reed and Lauren here?"

Caitlin moves away from the door to let them in. Reed and Lauren are sitting at the table, seemingly just finishing their lunch. John hadn't even realized it was lunch time; he hasn't eaten according to a schedule since Clarice left. That is, when he remembered to eat at all.

John leans on the wall and lets Marcos recount what Lorna told him. Reed and Caitlin look sick by the end of it, and he can understand. A bunch of telepaths using their son to get to their daughter…

Lauren looks exhausted, vulnerable in a way she hasn't been since the day she came back from the Trask lab. John suddenly realizes how much she's grown, how much she's changed, since the night he met her. The night everything changed for all of them.

"I've been feeling it. Andy...in the last few dreams, he got more insistent. And last night, the Frosts were there. I tried to walk away, to wake up, but I couldn't."

"The Frosts were in your dream and you didn't tell us?" Reed frowns.

"Things have been crazy. I wanted to figure out what they want from me first."

"They want you to join the Inner Circle," Marcos says.

"Yes, I know. That's nothing new, Andy's been trying to get me to switch sides for weeks."

"Do you think they can get into your mind from inside the dreams?"

"Wouldn't they already have done it if they could?"

"Probably," John says.

"But how long can you handle the pressure?" Caitlin asks.

"I don't know. But what other option do I have? Stop sleeping?"

Reed sighs. "No. We need to find another solution."

"We don't have the manpower to hit the Inner Circle, and the Frosts are far too protected," John says. "I don't have an idea here."

"We'll think about it, though," Marcos says. "I'll talk to Lorna again, see if she can think of something. Just...try to hold on in the meantime?"

Lauren nods. She looks stoical enough, but also exhausted, and young, terribly young. No seventeen-year-old should have had to spend the past year fighting for her existence.

None of them should, but especially not the children.

John follows Marcos to the door, but he's stopped before he reaches it.

"John?" Lauren asks in a small voice, looking up at him.

"Yes?"

"Do you..." she hesitates. "Do you have any news from Clarice?"

John sighs and looks away. "She's safe with the Morlocks. That's all I know."

"She didn't...say anything. I mean, I know she...broke up with you, but she left without saying goodbye to the rest of us."

John has to admit that he hasn't yet thought about how Clarice leaving will impact the rest of them. He's been thinking about himself only, and the fight, but Clarice is Lauren's friend, too, and Caitlin's. Marcos's. Even Reed's. She's one more person they'll have to keep going without.

"I'm sorry," he says, shaking his head. "I just don't know anything more."

Lauren hangs her head sadly. John avoids catching anyone else's eyes as he turns away and leaves. He feels hollow.

* * *

So, this has now gone away from the show completely. We're still not going into the deep end with this chapter, but getting closer. Next chapter should be the tipping point.

Hint: it's going to go dark.

As always, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and please tell me what you think!


	5. Chapter 5

[self-neglect, implied self-harm, canon-typical violence and injuries, blood, mentions of death]

Here comes a new chapter! We're going down into the darkness with this one. Will John come out the other end?

* * *

"I still don't understand why you're here," Clarice says, looking a little shaken. "Nothing you've told us so far−"

She doesn't finish her sentence. Marcos wonders what she doesn't want to say. That none of this warrants them coming to her? Warrants her concern?

"It's about what happened after that," he says calmly. He's done being angry. He was angry at Lorna for so long. Angry at John, for not letting anyone in. At the Struckers, for their part in this. At Clarice.

But now is not the time to be angry anymore.

"Then what is it? I'm not sitting here listening to you all day."

Marcos hopes with all he has that her apparent lack of concern is just a facade. It probably is, she's reacted strongly to the story so far, but if they can't get through to her...

"It was Lauren," he says.

"What about Lauren?"

"See, we knew that the Frosts had decided to go after her, through her dreams. But we didn't know exactly how they would go at it."

"So what happened?"

"Lauren was...really disturbed that you left. I don't know if you realized that, but she's been extremely lonely since Atlanta. Her parents have been so obsessed with Andy that they rarely ever listened to her feelings, she's seen her powers grow in ways that she doesn't understand, and she doesn't have any friends her age. You were the only one she really talked to. I was just as obsessed as her parents with finding Lorna, and John's been...you know. So you were her only friend."

Marcos pauses. Clarice bites her lip, but she doesn't say anything.

"Five days after you left, she came to us. Me and John, I mean. She'd seen the Frosts in her dreams several times by then, and they capitalized on her distress, relentlessly trying to convince her that she should join the Inner Circle, that at least she'd have a brother and actual friends there. That our fight was lost anyway, that the Inner Circle is the only place where mutants can thrive now."

Clarice opens her mouth to say something, then changes her mind. "Keep going," she nods instead.

"John tried to convince her that they were wrong, but honestly he wasn't doing the greatest job at it. She raged and screamed and cried for hours, accusing John of failing everyone, that he'd let the Underground fall part, that he'd let a bunch of kids like her and Andy fight for their lives in Atlanta… Pretty much everything that John has been beating himself up over, so it didn't go very well."

"What did he do?"

"He stopped arguing with her. He took it all, agreed with everything. And when Lauren cried herself to sleep, he went down to the junkyard and destroyed _another_ dozen cars with his bare hands."

Marcos swallows, not looking at Clarice anymore. The memory of his friend in that state, of realizing just how much he's blamed himself for all this months, how self-destructive he's become…

"I put Lauren to bed on your−John's couch, told her parents where she was, and I went to try and reason with John. When we came back up in the morning, Lauren was gone."

"Where did she go?"

"The Frosts got what they wanted. She went to the Inner Circle."

"She switched sides?"

"She...it's hard to tell how much of it was her decision, and how much was the work that the Frosts had done. Up until that point, they couldn't actually reach her outside her dreams, but she was vulnerable to their speech. She was lost."

* * *

"Where did she go?" Caitlin shouts at John. "Where? Why aren't you tracking her right now?"

John flinches, at the noise if not her tone, but she keeps advancing on him.

"Lorna already called to say she went to the Inner Circle," Marcos interrupts.

"I'm sorry," John shakes his head.

"You had her _in your apartment_! How could you let her get away?"

John hangs his head. He doesn't have any energy left for fighting, he just wants to drop on his bed and never get up again.

"We didn't _let_ her get away," Marcos answers. "She chose to leave!"

Caitlin actually launches at him, fists first. John intercepts her before she can get to Marcos and lets her pound on his chest. He stays stoic at the pain of his cracked ribs, knowing she's probably hurting her own hands just as much.

"Caitlin−" Reed tries to pull her back.

"That's what you all said about Andy! Are you just going to let everyone leave and do nothing?"

John feels the blow of her words far more than that of her fists.

She's right. He stands there watching, while everyone around him loses faith and goes away. He lost Lorna, and Andy, Sage, Fade, the list seems to go on. Clarice. Now Lauren. Lauren, who in the last few months has been the one who believed in their cause the most. Caitlin, Reed and Marcos have been obsessed with finding Andy and Lorna, and he can see now that Clarice was already pulling away from him long ago. But Lauren never stopped believing that they could do something, that they could win this fight.

John regrets not talking to her more. Maybe if he'd known more about her, about the woman she's becoming and not the scared girl who first came to the bank, he would have been able to hold her back. She was so distressed last night…

But she also believed every word she said to him, and she was right to.

"Listen, I'm going to talk to Lorna, okay?" Marcos says. "See if she can get through to Lauren, at least figure out if this was really her choice."

"I don't think it was," John says slowly. "She missed Andy, but she never considered switching sides, this whole time. She even refused to talk to him. So why now?"

"Because she's desperate?" Marcos says. "Clarice has left, we're all falling apart, we're clearly losing this fight..."

"But we also know the Frosts have been trying to get to her. What if they did it? What if they controlled her in her sleep and got her to go to them somehow?"

"Is that even possible?" Reed asks.

"Your children have been sharing dreams for months," John tells him. "I don't know what's possible or not with them."

"So what do we do?" Caitlin asks, dropping onto a chair, massaging her hands.

John sighs. "Let's wait for Lorna's assessment for now. Then we can figure out a plan."

"So you'll trust Lorna with something like this? What tells us she's not still playing their side?"

"I know Lorna," John says. "Even when we don't see eye to eye...I can tell when she's lying. And what other choice do we have?"

* * *

"If you're here, I assume John was right to trust you," Clarice says to Lorna, acerbically.

Lorna shrugs. Marcos knows that two weeks ago, this would have made her angry. They've grown jaded. Weary.

"So did you devise a plan to get the girl back?" Glow asks, sitting down beside Clarice. She's been listening almost since the beginning, but it's the first time she intervenes.

"We didn't have time to," Marcos says.

* * *

John sits on the couch well into the night, turning things over and over in his mind. Lorna hasn't given any news since her morning text to Marcos that she'd try to find out more about Lauren, and it's worrying. John hasn't forgotten how precarious her position is, that the slightest suspicion from Reeva Page or the Frosts could get her killed.

His mind goes straight for the worst possible scenario, as it always does. It used to be useful, back when they built the station, that he could plan for every option without shying away from the bad ones. It hasn't been useful in a long time, because these day the worst option is often something they have yet to imagine.

Nothing in his natural pessimism ever prepared him for seeing his lover standing in an alley two years after his death, brainwashed and tortured beyond recognition. The Hound program crossed the line for John, from fear to horror. He's been numb ever since he closed Gus's eyes and promised him to avenge his death.

Nothing prepared him for his best friend, the person he relied on the most, leaving to become...whatever she is now. He doesn't even have a word for it. Lorna might be fighting with them again, but it's never going to be the same.

And now she might be dead already, or being tortured in the worst imaginable way. And John just let another person, another _child_ , be brainwashed and mind-controlled into a fight that's not hers.

He can't close his eyes without seeing Lauren's lifeless body in front of him, mixing with Lorna's, and then Pulse's. The one time he does doze off, curled up on the couch, it turns into Clarice, Marcos, Evangeline. He's the one who brought them all here. He's the one responsible for all the death and the pain of the last few months.

John wakes up gasping for air. It takes him a while to calm down enough to stop panting. He stands up, ignoring the deplorable state of the apartment, though his body doesn't let him ignore its own wretched state. He winces at the pull of his cracked ribs, of the bandages stuck to wounds that should have stopped bleeding days ago, at the eye he can't even open any longer. He doesn't remember the last time he ate, but it must have been days ago.

The hole in his chest is too deep to allow for food now, or for rest. For anything but all-consuming grief and anger.

And pain.

Lauren's word keep echoing in his mind.

" _It was all your fault. You did this. You let them leave."_

John crosses the living room to the door and walks out, not looking back.

" _It was your plan that got us captured by Trask. Sonya's dead because of you."_

He doesn't think about what he's doing until he gets to his car.

" _Maybe Clarice was right to leave. There's no point in fighting for a lost cause."_

Lauren didn't know how close she was to echoing Clarice's own words, but John still feels the punch to his gut.

He looks through his pockets for the keys, but they're not there. John suspects Marcos lifted them off him after seeing his state earlier.

It doesn't matter. He doesn't need the car. It will be easier to follow the trail on foot.

It's late enough that the streets are mostly empty. John isn't bothered by the lack of light−if anything, it makes it easier to find traces. He closes his eyes and goes with his other senses. The trail isn't hard to find. He starts running.

He's not going to let anyone else get killed because of him.

* * *

Clarice puts a hand over her mouth in shock. "What did he do? Did he try to−"

"We think he wanted to get Lauren back, maybe to get me out," Lorna says. "The reason I hadn't answered Marcos's texts was that Reeva was celebrating having won over Lauren. She was obviously controlled by the Frosts, but she had me and the other train against Lauren and Andy all day."

"From there on, we don't know much about what happened to John," Marcos says.

"What do you mean?"

"The alarms went off as soon as John entered the building," Lorna answers. "I got up immediately, but Esme was there to hold me off. She told me some crack about a false alarm. I could tell she was lying, but I couldn't afford to blow my cover. The closest we came to figure out what happened is what Sage told us later. She was monitoring the surveillance system."

"Sage? She came with you?"

"I'll explain that later," Lorna says. "Reeva took Andy and Lauren with her, with Sophie and Phoebe to control them."

"Andy too?"

"The dreams were a kind of link between them. The Frosts used that to control Lauren, so they were really controlling both of them. I don't think Andy would have agreed to do what he did otherwise. He came to rescue John, remember."

"What did he do?" Clarice asks, full of apprehension.

* * *

John accelerates when the alarm goes off. He suspected his forcing open the front door would trigger something, so he doesn't waste time thinking about it−or covering his ears like he wants to. Pain doesn't matter.

He finds the stairs and runs up the twenty floors of the building, thanking his Marine training and his superhuman endurance that means he's only wheezing a little when he punches through the last door.

Caution has gone out of the window. He doesn't expect to make it out of here, just maybe distract Reeva and the Frosts long enough that Lorna can take Lauren and Andy and run. He texted Lorna's number before entering the building, but it's unlikely that she keeps the burn phone somewhere easily accessed.

But the alarm is enough of a ruckus that she has to know something is going on. It just means that everyone else knows it too.

His welcoming committee is smaller than he expected, yet enough to reduce his hasty half-plan to smithereens. A woman he assumes to be Reeva is standing calmly in the middle of the room, flanked by two of the Frost sisters, whose eyes are glowing. In front of them, already in battle stance, are Lauren and Andy.

John doesn't hesitates, doesn't stop to take it in. A single second of inattention would be his end. He sets his sight on the Frosts and runs.

He doesn't make it halfway across the room. Reeva opens her mouth and screams. Her scream is like nothing he's ever heard before. John doesn't know if he's ever been in this much pain. He falls to one knee, all his will set on fighting this off, but it doesn't stop. His head is imploding.

His vision blurs. The noise is excruciating. John screams.

Then it stops.

John doesn't take the time to breathe. He lets his fighting instincts take over and he lunges for Reeva.

He collides with some kind of force field, and he's thrown back, ramming brutally into the wall. When his vision clears enough, he sees Andy has his hands raised, advancing on him.

John stands back up. He's already pushed his body far beyond its breaking point, and the adrenaline is the only thing holding him up now.

He takes a step forward, but he's stopped by two of Lauren's cutting shields, slashing across his stomach. John doesn't even feel the blood gushing out, like he doesn't feel the rest of the pain. He's going to collapse any moment, but he has to make one last try.

Getting as much momentum as he can from the wall behind him, he jumps. More shields slash at his legs, and he feels Andy's concussive power break his ribs, but it pays. He lands right on one of the Frosts before Reeva can start screaming again.

"Phoebe!" the other Frost yells.

John aims for as much damage as he can do before he's out completely. His sight is the first to go, but his power still provides him with images. The woman's face, covered in blood. Her blood. His. Andy, ready to hit him again.

Reeva stops screaming when he collapses completely.

"Do whatever you want with him, but don't kill him," John hears her say, as if from far away. Her scream has left a ringing in his ears so bad he can barely understand. "He has information we can use."

"But he hurt Phoebe!" the still-standing Frost sister exclaims.

John moans in pain, unable to move even a finger.

"She'll be fine," Reeva says, walking away.

Lauren and Andy tower over John, ignoring him.

"Lauren..." John murmurs.

Lauren looks down at him. There is no recognition in her eyes.

Then the last of the smells, of the sounds disappear, and John can only lie there until the darkness takes over.

* * *

So, we finally get into the gist of this story. And end on a big cliffhanger. What did you think? What's going to happen to John? Can Marcos and Lorna get him out of this situation?

A reminder that you can find me on Tumblr at theemmaarthur


	6. Chapter 6

[mental torture, pain, restraining, death, mentions of self-neglect and self-harm, blood]  
I'm not really sure how to tag this, but it's very dark.

I left you with a cliffhanger last week, and this chapter...doesn't resolve it at all.

* * *

Clarice stares at Lorna in utter horror, a hand on her mouth. "He attacked the Inner Circle? On his own? Is he−"

"He's alive," Marcos says. He doesn't elaborate, doesn't say whether John is okay. Alive is good enough for now.

"He got captured?" Clarice asks.

"Yes," Lorna nods. "I only found out the next day."

* * *

When John becomes conscious enough again to think, he lying down on something hard. He immediately tries to move, to get into a defensive position, but he's restrained. His whole body is solidly anchored to the table up to his neck, his head the only thing he can move at all. There is no give whatsoever, nothing to use as leverage to get himself free.

Everything hurts. His chest is a mass of pain, barely allowing him to breathe. He feels weak in a way he know is caused by blood loss.

His ears are ringing. It's nothing like the tinnitus he got after Turner's torture, which was just an annoyance most of the time. This time it engulfs his whole world, and he can't hear anything over the ringing. It feels like no noise could ever be loud enough to cover it.

He opens his eyes, and everything is blurry. John has never needed glasses, but suddenly all he can see is shadows and lights, vague shapes of colors. He blinks, but nothing changes. There's a strong light over him, and it pulses in rhythm with his head.

The room smells faintly of sweat, and a perfume he can't identify, but even that feels far away. His senses aren't mixing properly, just giving him more blurs and ringing and vague scents, and a terrible headache.

He does recognize the three perfectly synchronized human shapes coming toward him. John doesn't think he can forget the Frosts, the way they move in harmony, the way their eyes light up when they use their powers.

"Whenever you want, girls," he distinguishes a voice, just barely at a level he can hear.

"In a minute. He has a strong mind, we need to prepare."

They're going to get into his mind. It could be a disaster. He knows too much.

Trying to ignore the pain in his chest and head, John concentrates. _"Focus. Focus your mind."_

He's never truly been able to feel the shields the Professor once placed on his mind, because they're not meant to be felt. They're just there to dampen the worst of his synesthesia, the part that's impossible to control. They're discreet, perhaps discreet enough to fly past the Frosts' radar. After all, their telepathy is nowhere near as powerful as the Professor's.

But once, on a rainy day while they were waiting on news from the main X-Men team, Jean taught him how to hide things behind those shields.

John focuses. He focuses harder than he has in years, harder than he has since he left the X-Mansion and enlisted. He focuses on Lorna, first, on putting away the last few days, so no one ever knows she's come back to them. The Frosts already know about Marcos, about the Struckers, so there's no need to hide that, and he won't be able to hide much, anyway. Clarice...they can't use her against him now. Instead, he tries to hide what he found at the blown-up building, about Evangeline. What he knows about the structure of the Underground, the little that is left. The little he knows about the Morlocks' location.

He hides until he's sure there's nothing left in his mind that they can use. Lorna's betrayal…

No. One more effort.

Lorna's…

Lorna…

John misses her. Perhaps more now that she's close, now that he's here, than ever in the past nine months. He wonders if she'll participate in torturing him, or if she'll just stand aside and watch. Does she still feel anything like friendship for him, or has she put it all aside for her own fight?

"We're ready," he hears, distantly.

John can feel the intrusion. He has no doubt it's the full force of the Frost's power, and it rips into his mind as his body convulses in the restraints.

He fights. He fights it with everything he has, but the training he's got in mental resistance is of little use. This isn't a discreet probe. This is a full on attack.

So he lets go. He has nothing to hold onto, his senses dampened until they're useless, his body paralyzed, his mind torn into pieces. He lets go, and wait for it to end.

With Clarice gone, with Lorna on the other side, the Struckers more divided than ever… No one is coming for him. John knows that. Marcos will try, maybe, but on his own he's not going to get far. John can only hope he doesn't get himself captured or killed, too.

A week ago, he stared down the barrel of a shotgun, and waited for the end. _"I'm gonna hunt down every single one of your friends."_ He got a respite, somehow. Long enough for Clarice to get her own closure, he hopes.

But this time, he's not getting out.

He can only wait for the end.

* * *

"Lorna," Marcos says, bringing the phone closer to his ear. He's relieved that she picked up. "John's gone."

"What?"

"John's missing. I can't find him, and his phone is back at his place."

"But..." Lorna starts. "Are you sure he's not in the junkyard or something?"

"Yes. I've looked everywhere. I don't know what to do."

"Marcos, something's happened here. I don't know what, they won't let me go down, but I think it's something bad."

"What? What do you mean?"

"I don't know! The alarms went off in the middle of the night. Esme tried to tell me that it was nothing, but I could tell it wasn't."

"Has it ever happened before?" Marcos asks.

"No. Sage always says our security system is airtight. If someone got in..."

"Can you try and find out more?"

"I don't know," Lorna whispers. "I can't afford to be suspected. Reeva was here earlier, she told us to stay upstairs today. But the Frosts weren't there, and I could tell Esme was really worried earlier. I haven't seen her since."

"Okay," Marcos says, trying to calm her down. "It could be nothing, right? But if you can find anything out..."

"I will," Lorna breathes. "I'll call you back later, okay?"

"Be careful."

"Always."

* * *

It's not so bad, at first. The Frosts search John's mind, but their power isn't that strong. John feels his memories being ripped apart, and he only hopes it doesn't mean he's going to forget them. There's plenty of things he doesn't want to forget.

Good moments. Laughing with his brothers in the Marines, long before that fateful day. He and Pulse overseas, hiding their relationship but never getting caught. Evangeline, later, and Lorna, the three of them in Tex's Lounge dreaming about a better future. Finding Pulse again, making love to him for the first time in a year. Many good memories.

He doesn't want to let go of the bad either. It's what keeps him going. The people he needs to find justice for. The friends he's lost, the brothers, everyone. He can't forget what he's fighting for.

He knows what the Frosts are looking for, but it's not in his mind.

 _We know it's there._

John doesn't know. He doesn't remember where the Morlocks are.

 _How did you hide it?_

The Underground is dying. He knows that. He can't protect all of them anymore. He's failed.

" _Since your failure in Atlanta, half of our stations have been destroyed."_

 _Where are the stations?_

John thinks about it, and realizes he doesn't know.

 _We'll look until we find what we're looking for. And if you don't give it to us...well, we have other ways._

John screams as his mind is ripped apart once more.

And screams.

And screams.

His world is nothing but pain.

And just like that, he's lost.

* * *

"John texted me during the night," Lorna says into the phone, panicked. "I only just saw it, I didn't look earlier because I didn't have time−"

"What? What did he−"

"It says: 'get Lauren and Andy out'. Nothing else."

"I don't understand," Marcos says. "He texted you that, and now he's gone. What did he do? Where did he go?"

"I don't know, but I'm really worried. What if what happened last night−"

"Did you find anything out?"

"I tried to probe the others, but they don't seem to know anything. But I can't get a hold of Sage. Something's definitely happened. I haven't seen the Frosts or Reeva, and Andy and Lauren are missing too. Rumor is, someone got in last night and was captured."

"Captured? Lorna, what if−" Marcos trails off, too horrified at the implications.

"You think John would try to attack this place? He knows it's far too dangerous."

"He's been really self-destructive lately," Marcos reflects. "I don't know if he would try it, but with Lauren going over, and the Struckers kept accusing him… It's possible."

"Oh my God," Lorna breathes. "If Reeva captured him−"

"You think she'd kill him?"

"If she got him alive? No. He's got information she could use."

"He'll never give it up."

"Marcos, she's got _three_ telepaths. And...you remember what her power feels like? What do you think it would do to John? If she has him, she's going to _break_ him."

"We can't just assume that. Maybe it wasn't John, maybe it was something else."

"Maybe," Lorna echoes doubtfully. "I need to find out more."

"Please don't get caught," Marcos whispers.

"I'll do my best."

* * *

John kneels over Pulse's fatally injured body, seeing recognition in his friend's, in his partner's eyes for the first time. _"I'm sorry."_ His hands are cold already, cold and clammy, more clearly than John's skin normally lets him feel−a last pulse of his power, a last tendril of feeling. _"I'll make them pay for what they did to you."_

Only he never did, did he? The Sentinel Services, the mad scientists like Campbell, the Purifiers...they're all still out there, and all John has accomplished is bringing his own side to its knees. Letting his friends get killed.

 _You failed_. _You failed as a leader, you failed as a soldier, you failed as a friend._

Enraged, John tries to lunge at−at what? where is he?−at _something_ but his arms are immediately blocked, restrained. He can't move.

He can't see or hear or smell anything. _Anything._ That never happens.

Except the incessant, too loud ringing. He doesn't know where it's coming from, but it never relents.

"Pulse," he murmurs, remembering his dream. Was it a dream? Is he awake, now? In this world where there is nothing but pain?

Pulse's face, memories come to his mind again. Pulse after they rescued him from the detention center. Pulse, the first face he saw waking up in the hospital, so many years ago. Pulse's eyes glowing, and his body melts, everything damper except his own skin. It's almost like he can feel his skin around his body like a cloth. Pulse touching him−no one else has ever touched him like that. He couldn't _feel_ it with anyone else.

Pulse, out there in the street, and John's stomach turns to lead as he melts again. Pulse who can't even recognize him. What did they do to him? What did _John_ do to him, abandoning him, leaving him for dead?

Pulse on the ground, _again_ , like a broken record.

 _Why does it keep coming back?_

Pulse falling to a bullet, on the other side of the fence.

John screams.

Pulse dead in his arms, his hand going lax.

Empty eyes. _"I'm sorry."_

* * *

Out of the transport bus, wearing prison scrubs spattered with blood, Clarice stares at him with empty eyes.

John looks around, at Lauren and Andy, at the other mutants he doesn't know, at too many dead Sentinel Services agents−a massacre. The Frosts are gone already, yet he feels their presence in the back of his mind.

 _That's because they're in his mind._

Sonya isn't there.

John looks back at Clarice, and she hangs her head. Lauren bites her lip looking up at him, unsure what to say. Tears are falling down her face.

John doesn't mean to look closer, but Clarice brushes against him to reach the car, and the image is overpowering suddenly. Sonya's blood on her clothes.

Sonya, in blue scrubs, a defiant look in her eyes.

" _Don't do anything for him!"_

John chokes.

Clarice pulls away and steps into the car, and the image is gone.

Sonya on the floor, her eyes wide open, staring into nothing.

Blood on her clothes.

John can't breathe.

" _I'm sorry, John, I couldn't do anything._ "

A memorial.

" _If only we'd given him what he wanted before−"_

Another hole in his heart.

" _We will find justice for her."_

He hasn't. Sonya's marker is still there, beside a pulverized building, and John has failed again. Failed at everything.

Clarice looks at him with eyes full of tears.

* * *

Lorna's eyes are dry and determined when she leaves.

 _Is she here now? Watching him? What is happening out there?_

She wants a better world. They all do, but she's always dreamed so much more vibrantly than any of them. And she's pregnant, now.

She's leaving the father of her child, for the dream of a better world.

John watches them all, as they leave. Sage. Fade. Andy. Lorna.

More people he failed. They don't believe the Underground can still win, still bring them that world they dream about. They don't believe, because he failed to show them the way.

" _Sacrifice is just a pretty name for losing."_

Lorna used to believe with him. They spent countless nights imagining that world. Just the two of them, at first, then with Pulse and Marcos.

But she walks away anyway and John is lost without her. Pulse is dead. Marcos is obsessed with finding his child. John has Clarice, now, and he loves her, but when it comes to believing, he's all alone.

Clarice never believed in that world. She grew up being different, being rejected, and she thinks−she knows−that will never change.

John crumbles, that night after Lorna leaves. He doesn't let Clarice comfort him again, because he doesn't deserve it.

He never lets Clarice comfort him again. They love each other, but this is one thing they can't have in common.

* * *

Some part of him isn't really surprised, when Clarice finally leaves. He's been waiting for the other shoe to drop, cataloging their difference, from the first day. He saw the appeal the Morlocks had on her.

He can understand, on some level. They never believed in the same thing. They never agreed on the right fight.

They loved each other, but it's not enough.

 _That's not really what you think. Love can be enough._

Just look at Marcos and Lorna. Now they each fight in one corner, and their daughter will grow up alone, because love isn't enough.

 _Because John failed._

Because he failed to give them that world where they could raise Dawn together and be a family.

John has known, almost from the day Evangeline found him, that he'd die for this fight. That he'd die so that future mutants can have that better world.

He never fought for himself.

Pulse and Sonya, even Lorna, they knew that. They understood. They hoped to see that world, but they knew John didn't think he would. So John never forgot.

But with Clarice, the last few months before the Purifiers captured him, he allowed himself to forget. He fought like it was really for himself, for him and Clarice, he fought teeth and nails every bit of the way because he forgot that it's not what really matters. Surrounded with people who don't understand, he forgot.

Until Marcos reminded him.

" _Who do you think we're fighting for, uh? You ever think about that?"_

Until Clarice figured it out.

" _I love you too much to watch you kill yourself."_

She's right. She's better safe and away. John could never live with himself if he got her killed. It's for the best that she's gone. He loves her too much to put her in anymore danger.

If only it didn't hurt so much.

The hole in his heart grows. It's taken over most of his chest, now, nothing left but a hole.

John gives in.

* * *

So we're getting into the really dark part of this story. It's going to get worse before it gets better, just so you're warned, but it will get better.

Did you like this chapter? Do you think John will get out of this...delicate situation before it's too late?


	7. Chapter 7

[mental torture, pain, restraining, death, mentions of self-neglect and self-harm, blood, mentions of suicide and SI, telepathic control, mentions of body horror/torture, past addiction]

The list of CWs for this story keeps getting longer because it's becoming even darker. This chapter is bad, worse than anything I've written before, and the next two will be in a similar vein. Take care of yourselves.

On the brighter side, a note: I've been asked this several times, I do not write angst for the sake of angst. John is NOT going to die in this story, and things WILL get better. Eventually. I want to explore his recovery, but for that we need to get through the hurt part of hurt/comfort. I do enjoy writing this, if you call enjoying regularly making myself cry (at least it's cathartic), but yes, there will be actual comfort. And not just two seconds of it after John gets rescued, it's going to be the majority of the story.

* * *

Clarice is not the only one looking horrified by the turn Marcos and Lorna's story is taking, but she's clearly the most affected. She has to keep herself from intervening every few seconds. Marcos feels a bit guilty for making her go through this rather than just telling her exactly why they're here, but he knows the impact won't be the same. This is necessary. And a small, guilty part of him want her to suffer even a fraction of what they went through, of what John went through. It's a horrible thought, he knows, but he can't help resenting her for leaving.

"We don't know much of what they did to John," Marcos says to Clarice. "Only that the Frosts sisters spent a lot of time messing with his mind."

"How long was he there?" Clarice asks, looking like she fears the answer.

"Too long," Lorna says darkly. "We didn't even know how to go at freeing him, we didn't know how to do anything by that point. We were desperate."

* * *

"Marcos, you need to calm down!" Lorna snaps.

Marcos doesn't stop pacing. "You're telling me to calm down? It's been nearly three days, and we still have nothing!"

"I know. I'm doing my best, but it feels like Reeva's waiting for me at every turn."

"We can't waste any more time," Marcos says, dropping onto a chair.

"Marcos, I want to get John out as much as you do, but attacking the headquarters with just the four of us is suicide."

"Then what do we do?" Caitlin asks, her voice full of anguish. She and Reed are sitting on the couch, holding onto each other for dear life. Lorna has the sudden thought that this is the second time both their children have been captured. Now that she has Dawn, she can imagine their pain.

Or maybe she can't. Dawn is safe, at least.

She's seen Lauren and Andy. Reeva has made no mystery of finally getting both the von Strucker heirs. But there was no good news she could bring to their parents. They seem unhurt, but it's like all light is gone from their eyes. They obey the Frosts so fully that they don't even need to control them all the time, only in pushes here and there. Phoebe hasn't shown her face since the night John got captured, and Esme and Sophie have been absent more than usual, so much that Lorna hasn't even managed to try to convince Esme to tell her what happened.

She can't help but imagine them down there, in the training room that's now off-limits, torturing John.

"I don't know," she says, sighing.

"We don't have time to wait," Reed says.

"No. But I don't have a plan."

"What about the Morlocks? Clarice? Could they help?" Caitlin asks.

Marcos turns to look at her.

"I doubt it. John tried to go see Clarice every day, but Erg wouldn't let her."

"If she knew John's been captured−"

"Would she come? I'd like to believe she would, but...she left because of this. Because he was becoming too reckless and self-destructive. She said she can't keep fighting for a lost cause."

"We have to try," Reed says. "Maybe if we tell her Lauren was taken as well..."

"We'd have to reach her first," Marcos says. "Last time she took me there through a portal. I have no idea how to find the Morlocks."

"We have to give it a go," Caitlin pleads. "For John, and Andy, and Lauren, please."

"I'll do my best," Marcos promises.

* * *

John is lost. He doesn't know how long he's been reliving things, the worst and the best moments of his life. When did the Frosts start twisting them until they were unrecognizable? John doesn't know what's real or not anymore. His memories are in shambles, a war zone, a disaster area.

He keeps flashing back and forth between the last few months and his time in Afghanistan. After a while, he doesn't know anymore who died when, where, who's body he saw and who is still alive. It doesn't matter.

Nothing feels right anyway. His minds feels like it been torn apart, destroyed in ways it was never meant to be.

Yet the Frosts are still looking for something that isn't there. They don't even ask questions anymore. They just rip apart every corner, going further with every hour. He sees images of his friends, of members of the Underground, dead and alive, pass before his eyes. They search methodically.

Until they change their method completely. John can feel it, almost, he has a distant insight into their path through his consciousness. He can feel the abrupt shift, from memories to reality.

Lauren.

 _She's the one John came here for. He was supposed to bring her home._

He's failed her, like he failed everyone else. He lost her brother, and then he let her handle everything on her own, her parents' worry and fear and her powers growing out of control. He did nothing, because he let himself get distracted.

She stands with Andy now, all in white and her brother all in black. They don't need words, they have a telepathic connection that goes deeper than the surface. They're linked.

John saw that, just before he was captured.

He's chained to the table again, the restraints chafing his arms and legs and most of all his neck. He fights against them, relentlessly, but there is no give.

His throat is raw from screaming. He hasn't stopped, but he can't even hear himself over the ringing in his ears.

Only the ringing is gone. _No, not gone. It's sill there, but dampened, somehow. The presence in his mind is there too._

He can see, for the first time in hours. Days?

 _Is it even real?_

He can't smell them. He can smell anything in this room, and it feels ghostly, unreal.

But John forgets that soon enough.

Lauren and Andy are training together. Sage is there, too, and Fade, in a glass room above them. No one looks at John.

They're deadly. Their powers, combined, without even holding hands… It's destroying everything. And the others are looking on, cheering every time another dummy explodes and turns into dust.

John turns his head, painfully, when the door opens. Lorna comes in, but she's not alone. John is filled with dread when he sees it.

Lorna has Reed and Caitlin floating in front of her, held up by pieces of metal going through their bodies. They both look barely conscious. They cough and choke when Lorna drops them to the floor, blood gushing out of their wounds.

John fights harder, but he still can't move.

"Reeva's gift for you," Lorna tells Andy and Lauren. She turns around and leaves without any more ceremony.

John fully expects the children to be horrified, to run to their parents, but they smile. In perfect harmony, they take each other's hand and raise their arms.

"Lauren," Reed murmurs weakly, barely raising his head from the ground.

The light grows brighter, coming out of the children. John forces himself to keep looking, but it's like looking at the sun. He screams again, struggling and shaking, choking on his collar.

The last thing he sees is the ground start to fracture underneath Reed and Caitlin.

 _It's not real._

 _Or is it?_

* * *

"You didn't try to come get me, in the end?" Clarice asks.

"I did," Marcos says. "But as I said, I didn't know where this place was. I had no way to come here. I roamed up and down random tunnels for hours."

"Membrain," Clarice turns to a mutant standing behind Lorna, with skin covered in some kind of green goop. "Didn't you see him?"

The man turns to Erg, who nods. "I did, after a while. I alerted Erg to it."

"Erg?" Clarice asks.

"Blink, you have to understand. John had been coming over everyday, I assumed your friend here just wanted the same. To talk to you, try to convince you to go back to the surface. I saw no reason to allow him in."

"I was screaming for you to come," Marcos says with spite. "You never did."

"We can't hear anything through Membrain's surveillance system," Erg defends himself. But he's looking at Clarice, not at Marcos. He wants her approval. "I could tell you were distraught, but when I made the decision to come to you, you left."

"After over four hours," Marcos remarks, eyebrows raised. Maybe Erg is telling the truth. It's not like it matters now, anyway.

Clarice looks away from Erg. "What's done is done," she says. "Go on," she nods to Marcos.

* * *

It's a defeated Marcos who comes back to John's still empty apartment. This place has been a lifeline to him so many times in the last few months, when his own apartment was too empty for him to bear. John and Clarice, despite needing to develop their own relationship, welcomed him at all hours of the day and night and let him crash on their couch, even though there was an empty bed three doors down.

Zingo wines at him as soon as he opens the door, but she stands back, disappointed, when she sees he's not John. Marcos rubs her head sadly.

"John will come back," he tells her, trying to convince himself.

He goes through the motions of finding her food to eat, though he doesn't bother getting himself dinner. Zingo probably needs a walk, but Marcos is too exhausted for that. He drops on the couch and stares ahead for a long time, Zingo lying her head on his lap and whining periodically.

The thought of John in Reeva's hands is somehow even worse than when it was Jace Turner. At least the Purifiers had few means at their disposal that could hurt John. He still barely got out with his life, because Turner is more creative than Marcos ever suspected, but he got out.

Reeva is capable of anything. They don't even know for sure than John is still alive, and if he is, Marcos can't imagine the hell he might be in right now. What Reeva's power could do to him, or the Frosts, or Lauren and Andy, mind-controlled and vulnerable… Nothing's impossible. John's strength won't protect him there.

What was he thinking, going to attack the Inner Circle like that?

Marcos sighs. He hopes, really hopes, that this wasn't just John deciding to end it. That he wasn't driven that far, to the point where he thought he should just take as many people with him as he could. But the state John was in the last few days… Not eating, not taking care of his wounds was one thing, but his game with Erg is further than Marcos has ever seen his friend go in self-destruction.

He's seen him punch through concrete blocks, reduce cars to pieces. Hit his head hard against walls and pillars when sensory overloads got too much. And once, only once, beg Lorna for pills to make the pain stop.

That was the day Marcos learned about John's former addiction, about the pills and the fight club and the rocky start of the Atlanta station. It was two weeks after Pulse died, and John worked himself into his worst ever migraine.

Marcos jumps when his phone starts ringing. He digs it out of his pocket and only takes the time to see Lorna's name on the screen before he answers.

"Anything new?" he asks point blank. Pleasantries feel pointless.

"I got confirmation that John's alive, and that Reeva has him down in the training room," Lorna says. "And I may have a lead on how to get him out. Have you talked to Clarice?"

Marcos feels a surge of adrenaline run through his body at the news, and he stands up, dislodging Zingo's head from his lap. She whelps indignantly.

"Sorry, girl," he mutters. "No," he adds for Lorna. "I couldn't find them. I tried everything I could think of, but−"

"It's just us, then," Lorna sighs.

"What was that lead?" Marcos asks.

"I can't tell you over the phone, it's too risky. And it's going to take some preparation. I'll come over in the morning, as early as I can make it, okay?"

"Alright. See you in the morning, then." Marcos almost wants to say _I love you_ , like he would have before, but he doesn't. Lorna doesn't either.

"Stay safe," he tells her instead.

"You too."

Marcos drops back onto the couch with a sigh and settles in for another night of waiting and worrying. He doesn't know how many more he can take.

* * *

It's all blank. John can't see anything. He doesn't know where he is anymore. The room he was in before was destroyed, right? Like the Atlanta station. Lauren and Andy destroyed it, holding hands and smiling. John has never seen them do it before, but he knows they weren't smiling, when they pulverized the station.

Are they still under mind-control, or are they doing this of their own will?

And how is John still here, still awake? Doesn't their power take everything in its way? There's not a chance his body would have resisted that much force, but he didn't even feel it.

Is he still alive?

There's no smell, no sound. The only thing he can feel is the metal of the restraints on his body, and the pain. He can't move.

There's the scream, again. He can't even hear it, not really, not over the ringing in his ears. But it resonates inside his body, vibrating until he's left shaking and nauseous. His head has never hurt this much, even during the worst migraines.

That's how he knows he's still alive. He wouldn't hurt this much if he was dead, would he?

Caitlin and Reed, though… They couldn't have survived that.

" _I want you to know something. I'm gonna hunt down every single one of your friends, and they're all gonna die."_

It looks like Turner didn't even need to do it himself.

It replays in his head again and again, the look on Lorna's face, Lauren and Andy's smile, the blood everywhere. His brain has nothing else to feed itself with. Only memories. Gus. Sonya. Too many people dead. His Marine brothers. Shatter. Michael. Countless mutants from other stations, dead or captured because of his failure. Reed. Caitlin.

Too many lives lost. To many people taken, because of him. John can't take anymore of this. He can't keep watching his friends die.

He was supposed to be the first to go. He lived with Pulse, with Sonya, even with Clarice certain that he would be the one who would die first, in battle. He never learned his lesson. Why is he still here, when they're all gone?

The hole inside him is taking over everything else, over his feelings and his pain.

John feels the tears escape his eyes, and he welcomes them.

He's tired.

* * *

I don't even know if I should ask if you've enjoyed this...so here's what I'll ask: do you want to read more? :)


	8. Chapter 8

[mental torture, pain, restraining, death, telepathic control, mentions of body horror/torture, explosions]

Still dark. Getting darker.

* * *

John runs. He runs like he never has before.

 _Only he can't be running, can he? He's still restrained on a table in that dark room._

He runs toward the smoking building with everything he has. His senses are already giving him a replay of the explosion, but he does his best to ignore it and keeps going.

The building is in ruins. There's nothing left, just the sirens making his ears bleed and the smoke getting into his lungs.

No movement.

John coughs, and falls to his knees. He keeps coughing, and coughing, and coughing.

He's too late.

 _He's always too late._

Evangeline…

" _You think I'm gonna let you destroy the rest of what we built?"_

She's gone. She was in the meeting. She's gone now. She couldn't have escaped this.

No! Not Evangeline. They can't know about her.

Not Evangeline.

Marcos?

He was in that building, wasn't he?

Can Marcos die in a fire?

 _Marcos is at home, he's fine, he wasn't there._

Can he burn, if the fire is hot enough?

John can almost see his face, among the body bags being taken out of the building.

There's too much smoke, and he keeps coughing. He can't get up to check.

 _He can't get up because he's chained to a table._

But Marcos is there, among the bodies. His face red and black with soot, his eyes closed.

Unmoving.

John coughs again and lets himself fall to the floor.

The hole inside him fills with ashes falling out of the sky.

He's too late.

 _He's always too late._

* * *

"Tell me about John," Lorna demands without introduction, when she finally manages to corner Sage in a quiet place. Everyone seems to be avoiding her, and she knows what this means. She's alone here, now.

"I can't−" Sage starts.

"Sage, I know they have him down there. I just need to know more. Please."

"Alright. He is down in the training room, yes."

"Is he okay?"

"I…" Sage hesitates. "They're doing things to him−"

"What? What are they doing?" Lorna asks, interrupting her. She takes her breath, trying not to betray too much of her dread.

"I don't know exactly," Sage answers. "He's restrained, and the Frosts have been getting into his head."

"Is he awake, is he−"

"I've only been in the control room, I haven't talked to him, Lorna."

"Sorry," Lorna backs down. "I just...Reeva won't allow me down there."

"Well, he was your best friend. And she must know he's the one you went to rescue from that compound by now."

Lorna nods. "She doesn't trust me with this. I figured."

"Isn't she right not to?" Sage asks.

"What do you mean?"

"Lorna, I'm the one who monitors the security systems. I've seen you go out for longer and longer everyday at all hours, I can see you're...doing something. Plus I heard you talk on the phone to someone last night, I'm fairly sure it was Marcos."

Lorna opens her mouth to deny it, to lie, but nothing comes out. She can hardly refute this. And this is Sage, not Reeva or the Frosts. Maybe…

"Are you going to report me?"

"No," Sage shakes her head. "You're my friend, Lorna. That's why I'm giving you a heads up. You won't fool them for long."

Lorna breathes in relief. "Thank you."

"So what are you going to do?"

"You want to get involved?" Lorna chokes.

"I… If what you're doing is going to help John, then...maybe. I'm not comfortable with what's going on. Whatever they're doing to him, he's clearly in pain, and...he was my friend too."

"So you would help? Even if it means betraying Reeva?"

Sage sighs and thinks for a moment.

"When you told me John was taken by the Purifiers, I found him for you," she says slowly. "I went against Reeva's wishes. Because I owe him. I owe both of you. But there's...more."

"More?"

"Reeva. When she had Rebecca down there...she had me monitor her. I know Rebecca tried to kill us all, but what Reeva came up with to keep her contained was barbaric. She was screaming, and crying and begging until all I wanted to do was let her out but...Reeva just looked at her like she didn't feel anything. And now with John, she almost looks like she's enjoying herself. I don't know, it got me thinking."

"Thinking how?"

"We don't know what her plans are. We don't know anything really. But she's nothing if not ruthless. I joined her because the Underground was losing, but−"

"But what she's preparing might be worse," Lorna says.

"Do you know something?"

"Nothing for sure, but it looks like she's planning to hit the government. Hit them so hard that the whole country will be in shambles and she can...I don't know, take over or something. Max and his team, you know who they are?"

"Yes, I wasn't happy with that either," Sage nods. "But how do you know all this?"

"I've been working with Marcos," Lorna admits. "Since before they captured John."

"You've−" Sage starts, then shakes her head and tries again more calmly. "You've already gone that far? Back to the Underground?"

"I'm not part of the Underground," Lorna says. "Not that there's much of an Underground to be part of anymore. But we have the same goal."

"And they just let you come back?"

Lorna bites her lip. "It's...complicated. It's not like it was before, there's no organization left. It was just Marcos and John and the Struckers. And now..."

"I see," Sage says. "So we may be screwed if we stay with Reeva, but there's nowhere else left to go."

"If we have a good plan, with you...I think maybe we could make it. Hit Reeva hard enough that she won't immediately retaliate, get John, get the hell out of here. Then we can work on the rest."

"What rest?"

"I don't know," Lorna admits. "I try not to think too far past stopping Reeva. But there are all these mutants rising everywhere now, so−" she trails off.

They both stay silent for a while, lost in their thoughts. After several minutes, Sage stands up.

"Will you help us?" Lorna asks.

"I'll help you get John out," Sage answers. "For his sake, and yours. I can't promise anything else."

"It's enough for me," Lorna says, a little hope rising in her. With Sage, they may have a fighting chance.

"Maybe you should talk to Fade too," Sage adds.

"You think he'd turn on Reeva? He's been doing her dirty work for months."

"I don't know. I think he may have been...having doubts. Reeva was furious with him when she found out he'd been captured by John and Marcos."

Lorna nods. "Thank you," she says. "I'll keep you in the loop."

She can only pray that her friend is sincere and won't just rat her out to Reeva the minute she's out of the room.

"So Sage was the lead you talked about?" Clarice asks Lorna, who starts and realizes she's trailed off, lost in her memories.

"Yes. I spoke to Fade as well, and convinced him to help us. It was easier than I'd hoped, really. When we left the Underground, they came to follow me, not Reeva or the Frost. They still had that loyalty. And I think Reeva torturing John was going too far for all of us."

"You had any idea what−" Clarice trails off, swallowing.

"What John was going through? At that point, only what Sage could say. They didn't hurt him physically, not after the night he fought them. He was tied down and mostly unaware of his surroundings, according to her. He would only react to Reeva's screams, she used her power on him regularly."

"Why?"

"To keep him under control while the Frosts worked on him, probably," Lorna answers. "Or...to break him."

* * *

John goes through the wreckage of the explosion, slowly, methodically. He walks through the destroyed building and lets the images overwhelm him.

 _He did this once before. He looked through the building, to see if...if_ someone _made it out alive...who? He doesn't remember._

He was with Marcos, then. _No. No, Marcos is gone._

 _Marcos was in the explosion._

 _John saw his body._

Marcos is dead.

The smoke runs through his lungs, making him cough, but John barely feels it. He's numb. He's cold, inside.

Full of ashes.

John moves through the scorched walls without seeing them. He looks for Marcos, deep in his power's visions of the past. Things look...garbled, for some reason, fuzzy.

 _Unreal._

But he finds Marcos's trace, here, on what used to be a filing cabinet, maybe.

There, on a half-collapsed wall.

Marcos running from the explosion. Falling. Struggling.

 _Struggling against what?_

John understands when he looks up. Lorna's here, too. Just outside the blast zone, with her Inner Circle friends. She's holding Marcos back by the metal on his body.

John ignores the sensation at the back of his mind, the one that's screaming that this is all wrong, not real, not _possible_. It's there. He can see it. It happened.

Lorna forces Marcos back inside the building.

And everything explodes.

John falls to his knees in the wreckage, and chokes. Like he's never going to breathe again.

Lorna looks away from the blast, protecting her face. When she looks back toward him, her eyes are empty.

 _Empty like John feels._

 _He fights, and screams, and rages, but all is black._

 _All but Marcos's face, unmoving, dead eyes looking back at him._

* * *

They meet in a park the next day, in the most inconspicuous place Lorna can think of. She, Sage and Fade get there separately and double check that they're not being followed. There's too much at stake to forget precautions.

Marcos welcomes them with a distrusting frown and a pair of burn phones. The Struckers stay behind him, looking around anxiously. Caitlin has her hand on a gun in her belt. Lorna wonders if she realizes it's useless against her, but she realizes Caitlin isn't worried about her. She's already regained the Struckers' trust, somehow.

"Lorna says we can trust you," Marcos says, looking at Fade. "I'm not as sure as she is, but we do need you. But you make a single wrong move−"

"We're not here to listen to threats," Fade growls.

"Calm down," Lorna says. "Both of you. We don't have to be friends, but we're all here for the same thing."

"I don't get why you'd want to help," Marcos says. "Not after you left right when we needed you most."

"Listen," Fade starts. "I left because I wasn't satisfied with what we were doing in the Underground, because it wasn't enough. It was not against you, but you and John weren't willing to go far enough to give us a fighting chance. But at least there I could make my opinion heard. Reeva is withholding information, she doesn't let us make our own choices. And I owe John."

"What do you mean?"

"He saved my life a bunch of times in Atlanta, but it's more than that. When John captured me at the clinic, he could have run and left me to the Purifiers. He had no reason to save me, and the two of you could probably have gotten away. But instead he let himself get captured to give us time to run. You know, I always thought he was too soft, too kind to be a good leader. I was wrong. He just doesn't ask anyone to do something he wouldn't do himself."

"Unlike Reeva," Lorna says.

"Unlike Reeva," Fade echoes. "She doesn't get her hands dirty."

"Okay," Marcos nods. "I still don't trust you, but we can try to work together. Right?" he turns to Caitlin and Reed.

They look at each other. Caitlin slowly removes her hand from the gun, nodding.

"You have anything about our children?"

Sage steps forward. "I know a bit about the bond that the Frosts made between them," she says. It's what allows them to control Andy and Lauren together."

* * *

"You still love her," a voice murmurs in his mind. John can't hear, but it's not coming from the outside. It's inside his head. "Lorna, and Andrew...you're still looking for them."

John doesn't bother answering, as he's thrown back into his memories again.

There's no point now.

He doesn't remember where he is, and he can sense nothing that would tell him. Everything is blank, though he thinks his eyes are 's no sound, no smell, nothing.

The only thing he can feel is pain.

The pain he deserves.

Maybe this is hell, after all. Reliving all his memories, seeing everything he did wrong. Everyone he was too late to save.

Marcos.

Marcos is dead. Reed, Caitlin. Sonya. Pulse. Too many people to count any more.

Marcos.

And Lorna was the one who killed him.

The very thought shakes John to his core. His heart comes to his mouth, but he can't move to throw up. He chokes. He coughs harshly, like the smoke is still in his lungs.

 _There's no smoke._

This isn't hell. This is real, and it's worse.

The deep vibration starts in him again, making him convulse against whatever is holding him still. A scream, his mind supplies. He doesn't hear it, only feels it. He barely remembers what it's like to hear.

His head implodes.

* * *

"So the plan is to wait until we're sure Reeva is out, and then sneak in," Caitlin summarizes, hours later, when they're back at the Struckers' place. Lorna followed them, hoping for a chance to talk to Marcos alone, but they've been rehashing their strategy−their poor attempt at strategy, if they're honest about it−all night instead.

"Pretty much, yes. None of us really stands a chance against Reeva's power, but if she's not there−"

"There are so many ways that this could go wrong. What if we're found out?"

"Then we'll have to fight to make it out," Lorna says. "I'm hoping it doesn't come to that, but we do need a contingency plan. Now Max, Heather and Tico are a good team to blow things up, but they don't have real fight training. I've watched them. When they work together, they're impressive, but they don't really trust each other, not enough to rely on one another in an emergency. They're going to be slow. Max is probably a good hand-to-hand fighter though, and Heather's power is unpredictable. I wish we had Clarice to counter that."

"But you think we can take them?"

"On their own, yes. If Marcos and I can still fight together, we can take them, especially with Fade on our side. But if Lauren and Andy are still controlled by the Frosts, we don't stand a chance."

"We need to take out the Frosts sisters first."

"Yes. That and Reeva not being there is paramount to the plan. It's the only way."

"How do we do that?" Caitlin asks.

"I'm still working on it, but Sage is going to be useful here. She has access to the surveillance system, so she can get us in undetected, and she knows at least some of Reeva's schedule. And she's immune to the Frosts' powers."

"How?"

"Something about her brain being in binary code. I don't know. But it means she can sneak up on them, and they won't suspect a thing."

"So having Sage and Fade with us gives us a fighting chance," Reed says. "But even then, a plan like that hinges on so many things outside our control. What if Reeva comes back before we can leave?"

"Then we're screwed," Lorna answers. "Are you willing to risk it?"

"For our children? Anything," Caitlin says. Reed nods in agreement. "Are you?"

"They're torturing John," Marcos answers. "Of course we're in."

* * *

Another dark chapter here, but Marcos and Lorna are starting to pull it together. I hope you enjoyed it. Tell me what you think !


	9. Chapter 9

We're reaching the action part of this story, and action is not my forte. I hope it's still readable.

Marcos and Lorna's story and John's "dreams" are two different timelines, so they don't necessarily coincide. I know this is getting complicated, but all three timelines will join up soon.

* * *

"It sounds like your plan wasn't very foolproof," Erg remarks.

Lorna looks up at him, annoyed. "It was all we had," she says. "Since _someone_ refused to help."

"We didn't know!" Clarice exclaims. "Of course I would have helped!"

"But you weren't there," Marcos states. There is no resentment in his voice. Lorna does feel annoyance, even anger, toward Clarice, but it has no place here. She was the first to leave, after all. She can hardly blame Clarice for doing the same thing.

She just can't help blaming her for the state she left John in.

"How did it go?" Clarice asks softly, not rising to Marcos's remark.

"Fine, at first. We made it inside the building without trouble. Then..."

* * *

"Look, I'm just saying, we should talk to her. This might not be what it looks like−"

Lorna still can't distinguish the Frost sisters just by voice, but there's a kind of sadness in this voice that tells her it's Esme. The other two sound emotionless in their best days.

"She's betrayed us! She's probably planning something with her little Underground friends right now!"

"Shit!" Lorna murmurs from her hiding spot. "How do they know?"

"You're not the best liar, you know," Sage murmurs back.

"This is going to make things more complicated."

Lorna knows they have a few seconds at best before they're made, given the triplets' telepathic power. Her cover was going to be blown today anyway, but if they've already warned Reeva…

"I've already texted Reeva," Sophie−or Phoebe, but Lorna thinks it's Sophie−confirms. "She's on her way back. She wants us all in the training room when she gets here."

Lorna curses under her breath again. This is getting better and better. Their whole plan rests on Reeva being away.

"We have to do it now," Sage whispers.

"Someone's here," Esme says at the same moment. "Lorna?"

"I'll distract them," Lorna murmurs to Sage. She walks out of the shadow, trying to look as calm as possible. "Girls."

"What are you doing here?" Esme asks, distressed.

"I live here," Lorna says indifferently. "Just like you." She walks through the room until she's facing the windows, pretending to look at the city under them. This has the advantage of forcing the triplets to turn their back to the corridor.

"Lorna, we know you've been visiting your...friends from the Underground," Phoebe says.

Lorna turns to her, and take a sharp breath of surprise. She hasn't seen Phoebe since the night John got captured. One of her eyes is nearly swollen shut, and there is a large gash on her forehead. John, Lorna understands. John did this.

"You mean Marcos? Of course I visited him. He's the father of my daughter. I took her to him to say goodbye."

"And you've been back since. More than once. You even brought Andy with you."

Lorna shrugs. "You're gonna blame a sixteen-year-old for wanting to see his parents? Don't worry, now that he has Lauren here, I doubt he'll want to go back. It didn't go so well."

"We're not here to talk about Andy's relationship with his family."

"You're the one who brought him up," Lorna says, stalling to the best of her ability.

Sage has managed to make it behind a couch, and Lorna can see Caitlin standing at the ready with her gun cocked. Their plan is to knock the triplets out, not to kill them, but they might not have time to do things cleanly.

The Frosts can't feel Sage, but Lorna has to keep their attention off Caitlin. They've bet that the triplets would be too busy with controlling Lauren and Andy to be aware of their surroundings, and so far it seems to be working.

Sage lunges at Lorna's nod. She hits Phoebe full force, planting the syringe full of anesthetic into her neck.

Esme and Sophie gasp in unison. They can't do anything to Sage, so they turn to Lorna instead.

"You did betray us," Esme murmurs sadly.

Lorna feels the violence of their intrusion, her mind ripping apart. It's nothing like what they did during Dawn's birth. That was soft and comforting and breathtaking. This time, it's brutal.

But it's also not strong enough. With one member down, and their attention divided, the sisters are too weak to keep her under control.

"Esme, please," Lorna gasps, turning to the woman who has almost become a real friend.

She can see Esme falter, slightly, and Sage stop just before she stabs her with another syringe.

"I−" Esme starts.

"No!" Sophie screams. "She betrayed us! Attack her," she tells Lorna, gesturing toward Sage.

Sage lunges for her instead, but Lorna feels the command tear at her mind. For one instant, she's distracted, looking into Esme's eyes, and she's not strong enough.

She feels her hands escape her will, the metal earrings Sage wears ripping out of her hears to wrap around her throat.

"No," Lorna murmurs, resisting it. Sage falls to her knees as the metal melts and close around her. "No," Lorna repeats. She closes her eyes and pushes back against the force in her mind. The metal shapes under her hands, against her will. She's almost there. She can feel Sophie's mind, she can push it out.

The shot is deafening.

Lorna opens her eyes, reeling against the pressure that's suddenly gone. Sophie falls to her knees, slowly, like in a dream. The blood spreads out quickly on her pristine dress.

Esme screams. It's incoherent, just a guttural, vital scream.

Caitlin steps out of the corridor, looking shocked. Sage gasps, ripping the metal from her neck. Lorna blinks for a moment, unable to comprehend what just happened.

She stands back up and walks over to the middle of the room. Sophie has fallen to the floor, her eyes wide open and blank. Esme is kneeling over her, sobbing.

"I'm sorry, Esme," Lorna tells her softly. She really is.

She takes the syringe from Sage's hand and plunges it into Esme's neck.

"You didn't leave us a choice."

She helps Sage stand up and supports her until she finds her breath again. Caitlin is still looking at them, immobile, lost, the gun in her hand.

"We need to go. Reeva will be here soon," Lorna says.

* * *

" _Your friends are never getting out of the Inner Circle. And if they stay with her, chances are you'll have to kill them."_

Evangeline's face floats in John's thoughts for a moment, before she goes up in flames and smoke. She was right.

John knows what he needs to do.

The smiles on Lauren and Andy's faces as they annihilated their parents replaces Evangeline, and his heart goes cold.

Marcos is gone. Caitlin and Reed are dead. Clarice is somewhere with the Morlocks, unreachable. John wouldn't involve her in this for anything.

He's on his own.

 _You were always alone._

He was alone after Pulse was captured, but then he found Lorna. Or Evangeline found them both. He was alone many years ago in that psychiatric ward, but then the Professor heard him cry for help.

Now no one will come for him. No one will hear him.

He failed them all. There is no redemption for that, but he has one last job to do.

 _Reality has the fabric of dreams. It tears apart and rebuilds itself. Almost like…_

No. This is reality. The other one, where he's restrained somewhere his senses can't pick up anything, doesn't make sense. This feels far more real.

 _It is real. It's your life now._

Lauren and Andy are already in front of the Sentinel Services building when he gets there. He's too late, again. The light coming out of their joined hands doesn't blind him, though John squints out of reflex. It's bright, but his body doesn't feel anything like it should anymore.

Like the slashes he feels bleeding in his stomach. They barely even hurt now. His minds is already fading out of his body.

John doesn't bother with a fighting plan. He bets everything on the assumption that Lauren and Andy lose consciousness of the world around them while using their power at this strength.

And if he misjudges, well, the only thing he's got to lose is his life.

On the balance against what these two can do to the world, it's not even a lightweight. He doesn't hesitate for an instant.

Andy looks up at him just before John slashes his throat. His eyes are full of fear and anger. He opens his mouth to scream, but no sound comes out.

Lauren smiles as her blood covers John. It gets into his eyes, into his mouth, and he coughs. He came to save Lauren that day, to the Inner Circle, and she slashed his stomach. His blood and hers mix. Now John is the one who kills her.

The building behind them collapses, and everything is ashes.

The last doubt in John's mind that this is even real fades away.

 _He has to finish this._

* * *

Marcos watches Reed warily as the man holds his hands carefully in front of him, shaking. Coming off the serum that suppressed his mutation so brutally, and so soon before he needed his powers, seems like a worse idea with every moment. The man has been struggling to hold it in for hours now, his hands randomly lighting up.

Fade stands behind them, already half-phased. It gives off a strange effect, like he's transparent. He's tapping his foot impatiently, but stops when Marcos glares at him. They can't afford to make any noise.

They're standing in front of Andy's bedroom, where Lauren has apparently been sleeping as well. They need Sage's presence to get into the training room, so this is the next best thing, waiting until the women have accomplished their mission to pick up the children. Or, alternatively, protect their exit with their lives if they fail.

Marcos jumps when the phone in his hand starts buzzing.

"Yes?" he says, picking up.

"Reeva knows," Lorna says. "We're on our way down, but we're running out of time. The kids should be safe."

"How does she−whatever, we're coming."

"Be careful. The others are out there, and they may have been warned."

"Alright. Be careful too."

Marcos hangs up and slips the phone into his pocket.

"We have to hurry up," he says. "We're good to go."

He opens the door to the bedroom. He's already in a fighting stance, almost expecting to be attacked right here and there, but they're met with silence. Marcos walks in slowly, Reed and Fade on his heels.

Lauren and Andy are lying on the bed like they fell onto it, unmoving. Marcos thinks they're unconscious at first, but he can see Lauren's eyes blinking sluggishly.

"What−" she asks weakly.

Reed looks at his children in anguish, unable to go to them. He can't risk hurting them with his uncontrolled power.

"We don't have time to wait until they're more awake," Marcos says. "Fade, help me."

He goes to get Lauren upright while Fade does the same for Andy. Both children look confused, and Lauren is weak in his arms, like she can't hold herself up. Marcos doesn't want to imagine what they've been going through for the last week, trapped in their bodies, mind-controlled.

"Marcos?" Lauren murmurs.

"Yes, it's me," Marcos says, putting one of her arms around his shoulders and half-helping, half-dragging her to the door. "Your parents are here too."

"What happened? The Frosts−"

"They're out," Marcos says. Probably. That was the plan anyway.

"Where are we going?" Andy asks, no more lively than his sister.

"To get John. Then home."

"'Kay," Andy whispers. "Home."

Marcos wonders what that means for him, now.

Reed walks in front of them, looking out for danger, because it's better than having him watch his children stumble and not be able to touch them. Marcos and Lauren are next, and Fade and Andy bring up the rear, with Fade ready to phase them out at a moment's notice. He's the one who gives out directions though, as neither Marcos nor Reed know their way around the building.

The training room is already open when they arrive. Marcos pauses and prepares to fight, but he spots Lorna close to the door. She and Caitlin come over, and help Marcos and Fade get the children inside the room and sit them down on the floor.

Marcos looks around him briefly. There's a glass room above, in which Sage is frantically typing at a keyboard. The rest of the room is empty, except for…

"You okay?" he asks Lorna.

She bites her lip and takes his hand, pulling him toward the table in the middle of the room. It looks like a surgical table, almost. Marcos puts a hand over his mouth.

John is lying there, his eyes open but unfocused. He's retrained from neck to ankles, with large bands of what looks like metal pinning his body to the table. His clothes are torn, and his shirt is covered in blood around his middle.

"John," Marcos lets out.

John doesn't react. He's breathing in gasps, a sheen of sweat on his forehead.

"Is he−"

* * *

John is on his knees, somewhere in a tunnel full of filth. There's no smell, still, but he can feel the mud around his legs, his hands.

"This is all your fault," a voice says.

He looks up to see Clarice towering over him, tears in her eyes.

"They're all dead," he says, his anguish making his own voice painful to hear.

"You couldn't protect them."

Clarice is crying openly now, but it doesn't lessen the impact of the accusation in her eyes.

John saw the same in Lauren's eyes, the night she went to the Inner Circle.

An eternity ago.

"You failed them all. The Struckers. Marcos. They would still be alive if you'd done your job."

"I was supposed to be the first to die," John murmurs.

"Did I hear that right?" Clarice growls, putting a hand in his hair to get him to look at her. "You wanted to die first. Do you realize how selfish that is?"

"That's why you left," John realizes. Tears are falling down his own cheeks, but they make no sound, no smell. Just wetness on his cheeks.

"You're a selfish man, John Proudstar. You deserve to die alone."

He deserves the pain, certainly. He couldn't save his friends, and he deserves to feel the agony of losing them.

"Lorna killed Marcos," he mutters. "She stood there and stopped him from running. How could she do that?"

"She got in too deep," Clarice answers. "She's lost now. Because you couldn't get her back. You couldn't prevent her from leaving in the first place."

"What do I do now?" John asks desperately.

He looks down at his hands. They're full of blood, and filthy mud. A metaphor for his life.

"You have to finish this. Take her out before she kills anybody else."

"I know," John says. "I will do it."

"John−"

John looks up at Clarice, almost hopefully, but he's only met with the sorrow and disgust in her eyes.

"When you're done, don't come back here. I don't want to see you again. I want to put this all behind me and forget."

"Forget about us?" John asks softly.

He is a pile of ashes only held up by skin by now. Feelings shouldn't even be possible. But her words, ripping through him like a flaming blade, somehow still hurt.

"Yes," Clarice says, turning away. "Goodbye John."

* * *

What did you think? I had a hard time writing the battle part, and writing death scenes for every character was heartbreaking. Poor John, I'm torturing him in the worst way.


	10. Chapter 10

[mental torture, pain, restraining, death, telepathic control, killing/murder, battle, blood, injuries]

The second part of the battle. It gets heated and somewhat bloody, while John's mental journey comes to an end.

* * *

"Guys, they're coming," Sage warns with fear in her voice from the control room.

"Dammit," Lorna mutters under her breath. "Reeva must have told them to meet her here. Caitlin," she says with a louder voice. "Bring the kids here. We need to be able to protect them and John. Sage, can you stall them for a minute?"

"I'm on it," Sage says. The door to the training room slams close.

Lorna and Marcos go to help Caitlin drag the children until they're leaning on the base of the table John is still chained to. His restraints aren't made of metal, so Lorna can't do anything about them, and they don't have time to worry about it.

"Mom?" Lauren asks tiredly. "What's happening?"

"We're gonna have to fight," Lorna answers before Caitlin can. "We need you two to stay out of the way."

"I can help," Lauren says.

"You can't even stand up. Protect yourselves if you can, but don't get in our way."

"Okay." Lauren snuggles up closer to her brother and lays her head on his shoulder. Lorna wonders if she's falling asleep, but her eyes stay open, alert.

"Fade?" Lorna turns to the large man.

"Do you want me to fight or to hide them? What's the priority?"

"Hide them as long as you can," Lorna decides, wondering when she became this group's leader. She's the one uniting them all, yes, but…

But she misses John. This is his job. And he's here lying on a table, restrained, not moving. Not seeing them.

She isn't given the time to further wonder what has been done to her friend. The door explodes, taking part of the wall with it. Max's power. The room doesn't allow for teleportation in and out, or Heather would have gotten them in a while ago.

A quick look behind her tells Lorna that Fade had time to hide the table and everyone who is touching it. She, Marcos and Reed move to protect the area, while Caitlin is still with her children, now invisible.

Max, Tico and Mark spread out, watching them warily. Heather disappears as soon as she's inside the room, and Lorna looks around in panic, before she finds her in the control room, an arm around Sage's throat.

"Traitors," she says, her voice resonating through the intercom. "All of you. You too, Fade, I know you're in here."

Sage fights her grip, but she only gets one hit before Heather drops her to the floor, hopefully just unconscious. Lorna makes a move toward her, but Marcos stops her. "Not now," he mutters.

Heather disappears again and reappears in front of them.

"You think you can measure up to us?" Max asks Lorna, contempt dripping from his voice. "With those guys? I should have known there was something off about you."

Lorna swishes her hands to get her knives out, letting them float in front of her.

"Oh, you have no idea," she says, shaking her head.

* * *

John carefully lays his watch on the table in his apartment, then his dog tags. He rubs his hands over the etched metal, looking at his and Gus's names on the tags for a moment. He can't give Lorna anything she can use against him, but it means abandoning that last piece of his former life. The last memory.

He's not coming back here. He doesn't know what he will do once this is done, but he can't come back. Maybe he'll die before he even makes it to Lorna.

But that's a selfish wish. Killing his best friend is the last thing he wants to do, but there's no other option left. She needs to be taken out. The Inner Circle needs to be taken out before they take over the whole world.

So John will do it, or die trying. He's the only one left standing in their way now.

His drive from the apartment to the Inner Circle headquarters goes like a dream, like time doesn't even exist.

There is no doubt in his mind, not hint of worry or surprise when the alarm system doesn't go off as he walks into the building. They are waiting for him. No obstacle stands in his way, because Reeva already knows he's coming.

Reeva and the Frosts sisters are there, standing in front of him, when he gets into the room at the top of the building. He can see the lights of the city behind them, the night sky. His last glimpse at the world he's leaving behind.

Lorna stands at the side. She's wearing the headpiece he saw her with at the Purifiers' compound. They stare at each other for a moment, and John barely registers that the Frosts and Reeva are making no move toward him.

Lorna takes a step forward.

"John?" she asks quietly. "What are you doing here?"

John closes his eyes, briefly, and lets it all go. The love he has for her, the good memories, the friendship. Only the pain and the despair can remain. He thinks about her as she dragged Marcos back into the explosion that killed him, as she pierced the Struckers' bodies with metal. As she turned her back on them and walked away, months ago in Nashville.

There's understanding, and fear, in Lorna's face when he looks at her again. Then rage. She makes a move toward the metal table behind him, but John is faster. He jumps.

Lorna may be a powerful mutant, but her body is human. Fragile. John weeps as her grabs her and, before she has time to react, snaps her neck.

She falls into his arms, and he sobs as he lets himself fall to the floor.

There. He's done it. He's killed her.

He's killed his best friend.

His sister.

 _Now nothing matters. Nothing can ever matter again._

 _His world is ashes._

* * *

Lorna cries out when something slashes her arm deeply. Heather, she understands. The bitch teleported a knife _into_ her arm. She removes the knife with her power and sends it flying back at Heather, but the woman disappears and the knife just slides to the floor.

Lorna looks down at her arm, and almost throws up. It's gushing up blood, already soaking her sleeve. The pain is all she can focus on for a moment.

"Lorna!" Marcos yells.

"I'm okay," she say, more weakly than she intends.

She extends her other arm to get the knife back. There's too many metal weapon in the room to keep track of at the same time, between her own knife, Caitlin's two guns and everything Max's team brought in.

Mark only fights with his own strength, but he's probably stronger than John, and he certainly has enough body mass to crush someone under him. Tico's shock waves have brought them all to the floor multiple time, but without furniture for Max to charge up, their abilities aren't of much use. Heather is the real annoyance, along with Max's gun, which is what Lorna has been concentrating on.

Fade has managed to hide the others so far, so they're not in danger for now. At least until one of their enemies starts wondering where the bullets they're fielding are coming from. Several have bounced off Mark's skin already, and Max took one to the shoulder.

Lorna gathers the bullets and shell casings off the floor and starts flying them around the room, hoping to protect Caitlin. She has to be careful to avoid Marcos and Reed, and even more the invisible people in the center of the room, so she doesn't dare sending them into the fight, but it should throw their enemies off for a while.

Marcos is facing Tico, trying to advance against the shock waves, his hands lighting up. Reed has little use at a long range, so he does his best to keep Mark at bay, threatening him with his arms, now red and glowing up to his shoulders. He's clearly in pain, and he has trouble controlling it, but Lorna can't do anything about that.

It leaves her and Caitlin with Max and Heather.

"Lights!" Marcos yells. Lorna has fought enough times with him before that closing her eyes tightly is a reflex, and she does it at the same time as throwing her knife toward Max. She's rewarded with a scream, but he's not the only one to scream as the room is flooded with light.

When it recedes behind Lorna's eyelids, she opens her eyes to see Marcos standing over Tico, who is immobile on the floor, his face burned beyond repair. Lorna averts her eyes, but she can see that he's dead. Marcos looks shaken, and he falls to one knee.

"Marcos!" Lorna runs to him, after checking that no one else has recovered from the flash yet.

"I'm okay," Marcos murmurs when she reaches him. There's a large gash on the side of his face, bleeding, but he looks otherwise fine. Lorna puts her good arm around him, briefly. They don't have time for comfort yet.

She stands back up and tries to take stock. Max is injured, enough that his reaction times are slowed, but he's still dangerous if he approaches any of them. His gun is still in his hand, somehow. Heather is teleporting all over, never stopping long enough for anyone to reach her. Mark and Reed are still keeping each other at bay, Reed doing his best to protect the area where his children and wife are hiding.

They need to get out of here, fast. Reeva will be here soon, and if they're still here then, they're done. But John is still tied down to the table, and too many of them are unable to fight their way out.

Lorna hears a grunt and Caitlin's yell behind her and she turns to see that one of Heather's knives−the ones she hasn't been able to keep tracking, since Heather keeps zapping all over the room−has reached Fade. His power drops immediately, making everyone around the table visible again.

Fade falls to the floor, Heather's knife deep in his chest. "No!" Lorna yells, gathering all the metal around the room and hurling it at Heather. The woman disappears before it reaches her, of course, and reappears behind Lorna.

"Good riddance," Heather says tauntingly. "It's a good day when you can get rid of a traitor."

Lorna give a guttural cry of anger and rains the metal down on Heather again. She doesn't manage to escape it all this time, and when she reappears at the other side of the room, she falls down to one knee, bleeding.

Lorna chases her around the room for a while, hoping that Heather will tire faster than her. She's slower with every zap, faltering.

"Caitlin!" Marcos cries out before Lorna can finish her.

She whirls around. Caitlin is standing in front of her children, her guns discarded−empty, most likely. She's defenseless in front of Max, who is looking at her greedily.

"Mom," Lauren mutters, weakly. A shield forms in front of Caitlin, but it drops quickly. Another, a cutting shield, doesn't even reach Max before it disappears. Andy, shaking his head, reaches his hand out and manages to make Max stumble, but not fall.

Max has almost reached Caitlin when he's tackled to the floor. Lorna watches it with fascination, his rolling down on the floor untangled with Reed, and the struggle between their similar and incompatible powers. Max's tries to charge Reed up to kill him only makes Reed lose more control of his power, the red lighting extending to his chest. He pants and writhes on the floor, but the outcome of the battle becomes clear the moment he manages to put his hands on Max's face.

Max screams and tries to get away, but it's too late. Reed removes his hands as soon as Max stops fighting, his skin falling off. He's already dead.

The light fades from Reed's body, and he stands back up, looking at his hands, panting.

Lorna looks around just in time to see Heather grab Mark and disappear. Just like that, they're alone, and the fight is over.

* * *

"Girls, I think he's finally ready," Reeva says.

Kneeling over Lorna's body, John stills. He can feel the Frosts' intrusion in his mind, but it's strange, somehow, from the inside. _As if they were already there._

That's when it rips apart. His mind, and with it the shield placed there long ago. Memories flood over him.

Evangeline. But Evangeline is dead.

Clarice. Clarice doesn't want anything to do with him. She's with the Morlocks, but that's not what the Frosts are looking for.

Marcos. Marcos is dead. Like everyone else. Gone.

Lorna.

John sobs and lets himself lie down beside her body.

Lorna switched sides, came back to Marcos. To John, even. She was there, and she hugged him.

For a moment, he's back at his apartment, lying between Lorna and Marcos in his bed.

He killed Lorna.

John doesn't scream, as he remembers. He wants to, but there's no energy, no life left in his body. He hugs Lorna's limp body and weeps until even his tears turn into ashes.

"There we go," Reeva says, standing over him. The Frosts are behind her, their eyes still glowing. "I believe we've come full circle."

* * *

"How did the Frosts know that you betrayed them?" Clarice asks. She's listened intently during Lorna's narration of the battle, gasping in the right places, looking down at her arm still in a sling, but they've fallen silent. Marcos can feel that Clarice has a lot of questions, but she doesn't quite dare ask them.

"I've thought about it a lot," Lorna answers. "I didn't do anything to tip them off, and Sage and Fade didn't give me away, I'm sure of that."

"Then what?"

Lorna hangs her head. "John. He knew. He probably tried to hide it as long as he could, and he's got some training in mental barriers, so it was longer than any of us could have. But I think they got it from his head in the end."

"John," Clarice repeats, pain in her voice. "What did they do to him?"

It's at least the third time she's asked that question, but Marcos can hardly blame her. They haven't answered, after all, not really.

"They...raped his mind," he answers. "As far as I can figure it out, they trapped him in his own nightmares until he broke, and then they took it all apart."

* * *

John wakes up in the dark. Not the dark, not exactly. It's just...blank. There's nothing.

It's not silent, but there's no sound.

No smell.

Only pain.

He's restrained on a hard surface.

 _It strikes a memory, but he doesn't know, anymore. A collar around his neck. The Purifiers' compound. But he got out of there._

 _Lorna got him out. And Clarice, and Marcos and the others._

No. Marcos is dead. Clarice is gone.

He was at the Inner Circle's headquarter. He _killed_ Lorna. Lorna who was working with them. How did he forget?

She's dead.

And Reeva got him.

 _They're all gone._

John has nothing left. Whatever Reeva does to him now, it doesn't matter.

He'll take it all, and hope it doesn't last too long.

He's ready to die. He should have died a long time ago, in that explosion in the desert. He didn't, and he failed everyone who was counting on him.

Even the pain is fading, already.

John's breath hitches.

There's a hand on his shoulder.

Human contact. Alive. Real. He hasn't been touched in an eternity.

He knows that in this place, wherever this is, contact means pain, but he'll gladly welcome it.

The hand moves away, and away with it goes John's only handle on reality.

He chokes on the ashes.

* * *

John's timeline has now joined Marcos and Lorna's, sort of. Next chapter: getting out might not be as easy as it seems, because when has anything ever been easy for them?

I hope you liked this chapter, and please leave even a very short review so I know you're still reading!


	11. Chapter 11

[pain, restraining, battle, blood, injuries]

Getting out of the Inner Circle Headquarters may not be as easy as it seems.

* * *

Caitlin finishes tying an emergency tourniquet around Lorna's arm when Marcos joins her beside John.

"Fade is dead," he says.

Lorna closes her eyes in dismay and grief.

"John−" Marcos starts, his heart going to his throat at the sight of his friend lying listlessly on the table.

"I don't know," Lorna says. "He jumped when I touched him, but nothing else."

"Can you get him free?"

Lorna shakes her head. "It's not metal," she says. "It's some kind of technology Reeva had installed. The computer can simulate about any material."

"Sage?"

Lorna nods up to Sage, just starting to sit up on the floor of the control room. "Not quickly enough," she says.

"I'll try," Marcos says. He approaches the table, where John still isn't reacting to his presence.

The material heats up similarly to metal at first, but it's not conductive. It also doesn't catch fire. Marcos shakes his head.

"I could keep heating it up, but it's going to become dangerous for John. And it will take more light than I have to burn through it all."

"Then what?" Lorna asks.

"Lauren," Caitlin says. "Maybe even Andy."

"Can they do it?" Marcos asks, looking at the children, still struggling to stay sitting up against the wall.

"Only one way to know."

Marcos watches her go back to her children with some admiration. She just got them back, after a truly harrowing week, no one knows if they will be okay, but Caitlin doesn't lose sight of the goal.

She helps Lauren stand up and supports her up to John.

"How is he?" Lauren asks weakly.

"We don't really know," Marcos says. "He's not responding."

Caitlin gestures to him to take over with Lauren. "He has a fever," she says, feeling John's brow. John shivers at the touch. "I can't see if the wounds are infected with those things," Caitlin points at the restraints.

"Can you cut through them?" Lorna asks Lauren.

"I can try. But I don't have enough control of the cutting shields right now, I'm going to hurt him."

"Do what you can. Right now it's more important that we get him out before Reeva arrives."

"Okay."

Lauren concentrates, and Marcos adjusts his grip on her, getting behind her so she can rest on him fully. "Don't worry about falling," he says in her ear. "I've got you."

"Thanks," Lauren murmurs, letting go of her efforts to stay standing.

Her first shield sizzles out before it reaches John. The second try cuts through the restraint at John's ankles like butter, but John tenses and moans when it also cuts right through his shoes and leaves a bloody mark on his foot.

"Sorry," Lauren winces, though John still doesn't seem to hear her. "It's so hard to focus."

"Keep going," Lorna says, though the pain in her voice makes it clear how much she hates this.

The third shield is much more precise and doesn't reach John's skin. Lauren slowly goes up one side of John's legs, then starts on the other side, having to cut through each strap twice to be able to remove it.

"Don't move, brother," Marcos murmurs, when John is finally free from the knees down. He's starting to get agitated, moving his legs, and Lauren is cutting through his skin more and more often. Marcos doesn't want to imagine what her shields would do to someone who doesn't have tissues twice as dense as normal.

Caitlin puts an arm over John's legs, trying to restrain them as gently as possible. He stills.

"He's reacting to touch and pain," she says. "I think he can't hear or see."

"What? How?"

"Reeva," Lorna says darkly. "Her screams turn our powers against us, right? John's power is tracking."

"Oh God," Marcos mutters.

"Reeva could be here any minute," Lorna remarks.

"It's taking too long," Lauren says. "Andy, I could really use some help here," she turns to her brother.

"Are you two−" Marcos asks.

"We've had a lot of time to talk," Lauren answers.

Andy is beside them a few seconds later, leaning on Reed, who seems to have canalized his power for now.

Lauren reaches out a hand to him. "You remember how it felt, in the Purifiers' compound?" she asks. "How synchronized we were?"

Andy nods.

"We need to do that again. We need to get John free."

"Okay," Andy says uncertainly. "It's gonna be messy, though."

"We don't have time for anything else," Marcos decides. "Do it."

Both teenagers hold out their hands toward John, in perfect unison. It's something to see, their powers used together. It's not the combined force that pulverized the Atlanta station, that Marcos has yet to see, but they seem to work in perfect harmony, as if they could read each other's thoughts.

It is messy, though. The table under John sizzles and bends and cracks, as shields methodically cut through the rest of the restraints. John opens his mouth as if to scream as his arms start bleeding, but no sound comes out. Marcos wants nothing more than to tell them to stop, but it's over before he has time to say a word.

The table falls sideways, and John rolls away.

He reacts to finally being free, weakly attempting to sit up. His body and torn clothes are covered in blood, both dry and fresh, and he doesn't even manage to raises his head on his own.

Marcos hands Lauren over to Caitlin. "John," he approaches, careful not to startle his friend into a fight or flight response.

John's eyes move, never settling on anything. It's looking more and more like Caitlin is right, he can't see or hear them. Marcos draws a breath. Behind him, Lauren and Andy collapse, exhausted.

John freezes when Marcos touches his arm. He stays immobile for a moment, his body tensing as if expecting pain, then his lips move, but no sound comes out.

He clears his throat. "Who?" he asks in a low, raw voice, hoarse from screaming.

"It's Marcos," Marcos says, though it seems to be useless. He tries to think of another way to communicate with John, but he comes up blank.

Lorna kneels beside him. With her good hand, she grabs John's and turns it so it's palm up. John lets her, frowning and tense.

"What are you doing?" Marcos murmurs.

Lorna doesn't answer, instead concentrating. Marcos tilts his head to see what she's doing, and understands. She's tracing letters in John's hand.

They both know John has figured it out when he starts mouthing the letters along.

"L-O-R−No!" he exclaims, too loudly. "Lorna's gone!"

"I'm here," Lorna says, but John doesn't react. She writes her name again, then starts on Marcos's.

"No," John repeats, now sounding desperate. "You can't be here."

There are tears running down his cheeks. He raises a hand to wipe them, and the water mixes with blood from his wounds, marking his face.

"We don't have time for this," Reed says.

Marcos hates that he's right, his heart breaking. John doesn't even know who they are, that his friends have come for him. After days of torture, he must be hurting and confused, and now they can't even communicate with him.

But they have to get out of here before Reeva comes back.

* * *

Lorna sees Clarice blanch more and more through Marcos's narrative. She bites her nails to the blood, horrified, but she doesn't interrupt. Everyone is listening in fascination, immobile in the middle of the busy room. It feels like time has stopped somehow.

Except that it hasn't. Lorna is starting to feel it in her injured arm, since the last painkillers she took were hours ago. And they can't stay down here for much longer.

They're nearing the end of their story, but they still need to convince Clarice. Even as upset as she seems now, will she be willing to do what's needed? What if they've come for nothing?

"John...I can't imagine..." Clarice murmurs, tears running down her face.

At her tone, Lorna knows they've won her over. She cares, more than Lorna thought after she left so suddenly. But then she knows what that's like, to do what you think is right despite how much it hurts the people you leave behind.

But Lorna made a mistake, and she thinks that Clarice has too. Her leaving didn't protect John, just like Lorna going to the Inner Circle didn't protect Dawn. And they'll have to live with that.

"Did you make it out? I mean, obviously you did, but−"

 _Did you all make it out alive?_ is the unspoken question in Clarice's eyes.

"Yes," Lorna says. "It wasn't easy, but we made it out."

* * *

John doesn't put up a fight when Marcos and Lorna pull him upright. Lorna puts one of his arms around her shoulders, on her uninjured side. His weight is almost too much to walk, but she'll carry him if she has to. They have to get him out of here.

Marcos takes John's other side, and the weight lifts partially. John doesn't even react, he just lets them move him until he's situated between them. He's pretty much a dead weight, his legs too weak to carry him. He winces in pain multiple time during the first step they take, but he doesn't protest, like he doesn't even care about hurting anymore.

Lorna blinks back tears again and tries to get that thought out of her head.

She looks up to see Sage has joined them, still walking gingerly but ready with her tablet to drop the security system. Lauren and Andy are each leaning on one of their parents.

"Let's go," she says, wondering again how she became the _de facto_ leader of their party. It's John's job. But John is not in any state to do it.

They make it back to the elevator without trouble, and Lorna chomps at the bit as it goes down, slower than she ever remembers it being.

Lorna's heart goes to her mouth when the elevator doors open to reveal Reeva's form, because she knows it means they've lost. Reeva briefly looks as surprised as them, but she opens her mouth and the scream, the one that tears at their guts and vibrates through their whole beings, starts resonating in the garage.

But she's alone. She went to see Benedict Ryan again today, Lorna surmised from the unmarked appointment Sage showed her in Reeva's hacked schedule, and she didn't take a body guard. And even without counting John, who is still leaning heavily on Marcos and Lorna's shoulders, between them they have five offensive powers and a gun.

And Reeva's scream is not as effective when she's trying to affect several people at once.

It is said that there is strength in number.

John lets out a whimper, a scared, high-pitched thing that Lorna would never have imagined hearing from him. He makes a move to clamp his hands over his ears, and she wonders if he can hear the scream. He can feel it, at the very least.

Lorna grabs hold of Reeva's earrings, tearing her ear lobes in the process, and manages to hold on, to stab Reeva with them to distract her, despite the sudden weakness in her limbs, the sick feeling in her stomach. Marcos's lights waver and don't heat up enough to burn, but they go straight into Reeva's eyes, blinding her enough that she has to take a step back and turn her head away.

That's enough time for the Struckers to join the dance. A bullet grazes Reeva's arm and she lets out a strangled cry, her scream evaporating. It comes back straight away, but by then Lauren and Andy, still leaning on their parents, have each raised a hand toward her. She's suddenly ejected, a force field sending her into a car.

"That's for Lauren," Andy murmurs.

"For you too," Lauren whispers back.

Lorna gives the signal to run toward their cars. Reeva is already moving, standing up, and they don't have time to hesitate. The scream starts again, but it's weaker, and they're already far enough along that they reach the cars before their legs start giving out under them.

They either need to take out Reeva for good, or buy themselves some time, Lorna realizes. As she reaches the car door, she hands John over to Marcos fully so he can get him into the passenger seat and she struggles back toward Reeva, twisting a hand to move the car behind her. It hits Reeva strongly enough to make her fall again, giving them a brief respite Marcos and Reed use to start the cars. John and the children are safely in, and Sage is frantically typing on her tablet to get the gate open.

Lorna meets Caitlin's eyes, once they're the only ones still out in the open. Killing Reeva might not be an option, not with her power so strong and incapacitating, but they can do their goddamn best to keep their families safe.

"Marcos, go!" Lorna shouts just before Reeva opens her mouth again, advancing on them.

Caitlin raises her gun with weak arms, but Reeva's power doesn't seem to work as well on humans as it does on mutants. Caitlin has no power to be turned against her. Her face deforms in a grimace as she fights the fog and the nausea, but she holds onto the gun.

Her aim is off, but Lorna takes hold of the bullets as soon as they're out of the chamber. She's on her knees, with one arm useless, but her power only requires her mind. She screams as she feels her strength dwindle out, forcing through to give the necessary momentum to the bullet.

It only takes one bullet, going into Reeva's side. It won't kill her, but she falls, hands going to put pressure on the wound, and it gives them the time they need. Caitlin hoists Lorna back up and supports her as they run to Marcos's car. Their piling up in the back is not elegant, but Marcos speeds through the exit as soon as the door is closed, and Sage shuts the automatic gate behind them.

They've made it out.

Lorna looks at John, motionless but tense in the passenger seat, his eyes staring at nothing, the blood that seems to cover him everywhere she looks, and she wonders if he's really made it out with them, or if a part of him, the part that makes him _him_ , stayed behind.

* * *

This was the last of the action-packed chapter, and of the second arc of this story. In the next chapter, we learn more about John's state, and Marcos and Lorna's story comes to an end. Third act: recovery, reunions, rebuilding.

I hope you liked this chapter! If you've read this far and enjoyed the story, don't hesitate to leave a (even very short) comment to tell me you're still reading :)


	12. Chapter 12

I left you with an awful cliffhanger, and put this story aside for months. RL things happened, and I needed some time away because this was getting a little too depressing, but I hope you haven't stopped reading.

[dissociation and depressive thoughts, non graphic description of injuries and medical procedures]

* * *

"How long ago was all that?" Clarice asks, as Lorna trails off and falls silent after recounting their exit from the Inner Circle Headquarters. Somehow this part of the story, the one that was supposed to be the big rescue, the happy ending, is the hardest to rehash.

"We got him out five days ago," Marcos answers. "With the clinic still closed, we brought John home and called Dr Kesley. He's still on leave, but he agreed to do a house call given the situation. Caitlin patched us up in the meantime."

"Your arm?" Clarice nods to Lorna.

"There was some muscle damage, but it will heal," Lorna answers. It aches more and more though, reminding her that they're running against a clock.

"And John?"

Lorna sighs. Marcos looks down, unable to meet Clarice's eyes.

"It's...complicated," he says.

* * *

Marcos and Lorna sit on the couch of John's apartment, fretting. Marcos has an arm around Lorna's shoulder, though he's careful of her arm, now stitched up and resting in a sling. Caitlin treated all their wounds and put her children to bed, declaring them physically and emotionally exhausted, before she disappeared into John's bedroom with Doctor Kesley. It's been half-an-hour, and they're still talking quietly on the other side of the door.

Marcos's thoughts keep rehashing the moment they realized that John could neither see them nor hear them, as if on loop. The face of his friend, eyes lost in space, tightens the knot in his throat more with every minute they wait for answers. What if this is irreversible? What if John has lost his sight and his hearing forever?

It's barely possible to imagine what that would mean. Marcos knows deaf-blind people exist, but it's a vague notion in a corner of his mind, not a tangible reality. Not something that can happen to _John._ John whose whole world is so deeply linked to his senses.

His other injuries are worrying too, but Marcos can barely think about that. The fear, the anguish are taking up his whole mind. They've gotten John out, alive, when they had so little hope of succeeding, and yet it doesn't even remotely feels like success.

"He can't be−" Lorna chokes out in a small voice.

"I don't know," Marcos sighs. "We have to wait. We can't think−"

Lorna lets out a sob. It's fatigue as much as fear, Marcos thinks, feeling a tear roll down his own cheek. The day has been more than taxing.

Caitlin comes out of the bedroom five minutes later, followed by Dr Kelsey.

"How is he?" Marcos asks, immediately rising. He helps Lorna stand up as well.

"Thank you, Doctor," Caitlin says, without answering him. "Thank you so much for coming."

"John once got his hands burned to third degree in front of me to save a patient's life. I couldn't refuse."

Caitlin nods. "Can I call you again if I need any more help?" she asks.

"Of course. I really hope things improve for him," the Doctor says, holding out a hand.

Caitlin shakes his hand and they all watch him go. Looking exhausted, Caitlin signals Marcos and Lorna to sit around the table.

"We've sedated him for now," she says. "He should sleep until morning at least."

"But how is he?" Marcos repeats.

Caitlin sighs. "It's hard to tell exactly, since communication is...difficult. We treated his wounds the best we could, though as his skin cannot be stitched, it's a patch-up job at best. It was hard enough getting an IV into him."

"I've...cauterized wounds for him before," Marcos offers hesitantly. He's hated it every time, but he'll do it if it's what John needs.

"I don't think he could handle it right now," Caitlin answers. "Not without being able to explain it to him beforehand. The wound on his abdomen is the most worrying. As far as I can tell, it dates back several days, and it wasn't treated, so infection has set in. Dr Kelsey added broad spectrum antibiotics to the IV, but John's body is very weak. He'll have a hard time beating this."

Marcos closes his eyes. "What about his−"

"His senses? It's hard to tell. There is no physiological damage to his eyes or ears that we can see without imagery, but this was caused by a mutant power."

"When Reeva did it to me, it faded almost immediately after she stopped screaming," Lorna says.

"Me too," Marcos adds. "It made me burn myself, but it was gone very soon after."

"I think Reeva may have used her power on John multiple times, for long stretches. And it might be even more potent to him with his enhanced hearing."

"So what does it mean? That he's going to...stay like this?" Lorna asks.

"Dr Kesley thinks it will probably fade with time, and I would tend to agree. There's nothing telling us that Reeva's power can cause permanent damage."

"How much time are we talking about?" Marcos asks.

"That's what we don't know. It could be a matter of days, but it could also take months. Most likely somewhere in between."

Marcos and Lorna exchange a glance, trying to take this in. Marcos swallows.

"What can we do?" he asks.

"Try to communicate with him however you can. Knowing that he's safe and with friends will probably go a long way toward his recovery."

Marcos nods slowly. He feels stunned, numb almost.

"I'm sorry I can't give you better news," Caitlin says.

"We got him out," Lorna says. "It's a start."

She looks just as stunned, but it's like she's suddenly remembering that she's been the one leading their little group today, that they still need her.

"How are your children?" she asks Caitlin.

"Sleeping. It looks like they're exhausted, but not injured. At least physically. We'll look after them."

"Good," Lorna says, standing up.

Marcos shakes himself and follows her lead.

"Can Andy sleep in your apartment?" he asks.

"Yes, for now at least. We won't force him if he doesn't want to stay, but we want to at least try to talk to him."

"He was having real doubts, before all this," Lorna says. "Maybe you'll be able to get through to him."

"I got the impression that Lauren may already have," Marcos says.

"We'll see," Caitlin says, but he can see a flicker of hope in her eyes.

There's a knock on the door and Reed and Sage come in.

"The children are fine," Reed reassures Caitlin before she can make a move. "John?"

"Sedated," Caitlin says simply.

Reed nods, looking at the closed bedroom door with a frown.

"Sage needs a place to sleep," he says.

"You can use my apartment for now," Marcos tells Sage, tossing her his keys. "We're going to stay with John anyway."

He looks to Lorna for confirmation, who nods.

"Do you guys have an extra mattress or something?" she asks. "There's only one couch."

"I have a camping mattress," Marcos answers. "I'll go get it. I think we're all exhausted, so we'll figure things out in the morning, alright?"

* * *

Lorna is halfheartedly making breakfast one-handed the next morning when she hears a loud crash in the bedroom. She looks over, frowning. Marcos has gone back to his apartment to shower, since the bathroom here requires going through the bedroom and they've been hesitant to go in. Even though John probably wouldn't know they were here.

She puts down the egg she was about to crack and carefully approaches the bedroom. The doors have stayed ajar all night so she and Marcos would hear if anything happened, and she can see through them that John is no longer in bed. The IV pole is still there, the needle ripped off and lying on the bed.

"John?" Lorna asks uselessly, walking in.

She doesn't even see him at first. The nightstand on the far side looks like it has been punched through, and there are wooden shards all over the floor. The lamp has fallen beside it, also broken.

John is sitting curled up in the corner, breathing heavily. His eyes roam wildly around the room, never settling on anything.

"John!" Lorna rushes over to him. He doesn't react to her presence at all until she touches his arm. He freezes for a moment, then seems to fight against restraints that aren't there. He pushes Lorna away as soon as he realizes that, so forcefully that she falls backward and hits her bad arm against the bed. She cries out.

John puts his hands on his ears with a moan, wincing.

"John?" Lorna tries again, cradling her arm. Did he hear her cry? It was high pitched with surprise and pain, the kind that would have hurt John's ears before, though he wouldn't have let it show.

She needs to make sure. Experimentally, she taps her hand against her thigh−the closest she can get to clapping with one arm in a sling. John still looks like a deer caught in headlights, so she starts low and increases the volume of the claps slowly. John doesn't react to the first few, but when a loud one makes him clap his hands over his ears again. He doesn't seem to identify what the sound is or where it comes from though, only the pain.

Can you be sound-sensitive when you can't hear the sounds?

John retreats into his corner again, his arms in front of him as if to protect himself. Lorna tries to take his hand again, gently, but he shakes her off in panic.

"Don't," John's lips form, though no sound comes out. He clears his throat with a wince. The wound on his stomach must hurt like hell in his position, Lorna thinks. She needs to get through to him.

"Who?" John tries again.

His breathing is evening out finally, so Lorna tries again to touch his hand. He lets her, this time. He tenses, but he knows it's their only mean of communication.

L-O-R− she starts writing.

"No!" John exclaims, the pain in his voice unbearable. "She's gone. Stop lying!"

"I'm not lying!" Lorna replies automatically. How can she make him understand that? And why does he think it so impossible that it's her? He knows she's back with the Underground, he saw her. Have the Frosts somehow made him forget?

N-O-T L-Y-I-N-G.

John frowns uncomprehendingly at first, and Lorna has to start over. His skin isn't sensitive at the best of times, and distinguishing the letters has to be hard, especially in his state.

"Lorna's dead," John says darkly.

"What?" escapes Lorna's mouth. Why does he think her dead?

"You're not her. What do you want?"

N-O-T−

"She fucking died in my arms!" John shouts. It's too loud, and the sound of his own voice seems to wreck him. Or maybe the tears and the despair in his unseeing eyes come from deeper. Lorna doesn't register his words immediately, as John shudders in pain and sobs.

What is going on in that brain of his?

"What happened to you?" Lorna murmurs. "What did they do to you?"

She's crying too, now.

"I'm not dead," she repeats in a loop. "I'm right here." But there's no point.

John seems to have retreated into himself, no longer aware of her. He lets her hoist him up carefully and get him back onto the bed, but he doesn't contribute. Lorna isn't strong enough to lift him, so she uses the first metal thing she can sense, the drawer handles of the ruined nightstand. She unscrews them and shapes them around John's arms, above his elbow, in one of the only bandage-free parts of his upper body.

She almost expects the feel of new restraints to make him jump to the ceiling, or fight her, but he just tenses for a moment and slumps back, as if resigned. Lorna wonders if he thinks that he's still in captivity, that there's nothing he can do about it. She doesn't understand what's going through his mind.

John curls in on himself once back on the bed, his back to her. She gingerly sits down on the edge of the bed, tears still running down her face. "It's all my fault," she murmurs. "I trusted them."

"Lorna?"

Lorna looks up. Marcos is watching them through the open door, a frown on his face. "What's going on?"

She wipes at the tears on her face. "Not here," she says, thinking of how John shrinks away from noise. She stands up and joins Marcos into the living room, dropping on the couch. Her arm hurts.

Haltingly, she tells him what happened.

"I don't know what to do," she murmurs.

"He needs rest. I'll get Caitlin to put the IV back in and check his injuries. The rest can wait, okay?"

"He need to know we're here. He needs to know he's safe," Lorna sobs.

"I don't know how to make him understand," Marcos sighs. "I'm sorry."

"He thinks I'm dead."

"What? What do you mean?"

"He...he just said it. He won't believe I'm here because he thinks he saw me die."

"But−"

"He thinks I'm dead," Lorna repeats.

"How?"

"I don't know. The Frosts...they're strong. When I was giving birth, they showed me things. They can manipulate−"

"But you knew it wasn't real?"

"Yeah, but...they had a week with him. And you saw him, he was tied up and he can't see or hear...I wouldn't know what's real or not either."

"He'll come around," Marcos says. "He'll see that it's not real."

"He can't see."

"You know what I mean."

"I'm not sure he will, Marcos. There's no way to prove it to him."

* * *

John strokes the bandages on his forearm lightly. He still doesn't know where he is, what's going on, but bandages means he's safe, right? Safer, anyway. He's not restrained anymore, at least not all the time. His injuries have been treated.

Unless this is some kind of new play by Reeva. Maybe she's found some new usefulness to his broken body, now that the Frosts have picked his mind for all it was worth. Is this her pretending to be Lorna? What does she want from him?

Shouldn't she know Lorna's dead? She was there, wasn't she?

The pain in his stomach is relentless. He barely felt it while strapped to the table, because his mind dissociated too far from his body, but now it burns him deeply. Everything hurts. He can feel each cut on his body, throbbing. John kneads his knuckles deeper into his forearm, feeling the cuts reopen. Good. Pain is good. He deserves it.

This new place doesn't feel like the Inner Circle Headquarters, though he has very few ways to tell. It's warmer. Maybe he really is somewhere else. There was a car trip, and then hands on him that felt medical, that bandaged him and poked him with needles. He doesn't know. With nothing but the touches, the vibration in his body, it was impossible to keep track of things.

He doesn't know how long it's been. How long since his body was freed, or how long since he stopped caring. How long was he on that table? Has it been days, weeks, months? Since all his friends died?

He saw Clarice, too. When was that? She told him never to come back.

"Clarice," he mutters. Or at least he feels his mouth form the words, his vocal cords vibrate, but he can't hear his own voice. Clarice is gone, too. Gone from his life, at least.

If he even has a life anymore. For all he knows, he might be dead already, and randomly floating in some kind of ghost world, blind and deaf. And if he's actually alive, it's become clear that his life doesn't belong to him anymore. His hand goes up to the metal ring secured around his biceps. He doesn't know if he's still in Reeva's hands, but he's not free.

"Clarice," he murmurs again in a sob, trying to hold on to the idea that she's out there somewhere, alive and safe. It's all that matters anymore.

John doesn't matter. He got his friends killed. He killed Lorna himself. He broke to the Frosts' torture. He deserves everything that can be done to him.

He can just pray that Clarice will be left alone, that he didn't betray her too without meaning to.

"Clarice." _I love you._ John doesn't say it aloud. He has no right to. What he feels, what he wants is meaningless.

 _I'm scared._

* * *

John is free, but things aren't getting better quite yet. I hope I'll manage to continue writing, I have about half of the next chapter so far. We're getting very close to where the two timelines will meet.

I hope you liked it! Can you guess what's going to happen to John?


	13. Chapter 13

[suicide ideation, dissociation, unhealthy eating behavior, discussion of injuries and potential death]

Progress on this story is slow, but still happening somehow, so here's a new chapter.

* * *

"Any progress?" Lorna asks Marcos as he closes the door to John's room behind him. They've been trying to get him to respond to them for a whole day now, but he shut off after the episode with Lorna yesterday and they haven't been able to get him to truly wake up. Caitlin had to give him a sedative just to stop him from ripping off his IV again and trying to hide in the tightest space in the room, but it should have worn off hours ago.

Lorna couldn't stand watching him lie there with his eyes wide open, clearly awake, but dissociating so far that he didn't respond to anything.

"I think he's waking up a bit more," Marcos answers. "He, uh...I tried to do like you, write my name in his hand, but he reacted pretty strongly. I think he believes I'm dead too."

"What did they show him?" Lorna sighs.

"I don't know. He's calling Clarice again."

"Do you think−" Lorna starts hesitantly.

"No," Marcos interrupts her. "Clarice is my friend, but she left. She must have had a good reason, and the state John was in after she left? It won't do him any good to see her."

"Marcos, I just don't know what to do. He's not eating. Caitlin said she can only IV feed him for so long."

"I don't know either," Marcos murmurs, dropping on the couch beside her.

Exhausted and dispirited, Lorna rests her head on his shoulder. The ghost of their former relationship still hangs above them, and neither of them know where they stand, but right now it doesn't matter.

John is the one who matters.

"Reeva will come after us," Lorna murmurs. "What do we do then?"

"What's left for us to do? We fight. We may even have a fighting chance now, if we don't wait until she finds new minions."

"What about John? He's vulnerable. If she finds him in this state, she'll crush him."

Marcos sighs. "If she hasn't already," he mutters.

Lorna chokes on her breath.

* * *

"If you decided not to come get me, then...why are you here now?" Clarice asks. Her face doesn't betray what she thinks of it. "Erg says you've been coming down for several days."

"We didn't feel like we had a choice anymore," Marcos says. "I didn't want to make you feel like you had to come back, but the situation has become critical."

"What do you mean?"

"When we rescued John five days ago, we thought he'd be alright now that he wasn't captive anymore, that he'd heal if he was safe, but...he's actually gotten worse. He's in a really bad state, Clarice. The wounds on his abdomen, Lauren said she did that with her powers under the Frosts' control. They left them untreated, and the wounds got infected. The antibiotics aren't working, not fast enough. He's so weak. He won't feed himself. The little he eats, he just throws back up. He's losing weight too fast, and he's getting weaker every day. Caitlin said−" Marcos trails off, hesitating.

"Said what?" Clarice presses.

"She said he won't last another week. She's been giving him nutrients through the IV, but it'll only keep him alive for so long. And he keeps ripping it off anyway."

Clarice runs a hand over her face, swallowing hard.

"And you think I could, what, convince him to eat?"

"I don't know. He seems to think we're all dead, but he keeps calling for you. We're just hoping...if he recognizes you, if he understands he's not alone...maybe he'll want to live."

* * *

"We need to keep trying," Marcos suddenly decides, waking them both up from the disheartened drowsiness they've fallen into. Neither of them has really slept in days, and the events have been emotionally and physically damaging.

"How?" Lorna asks. Painfully, she digs the small bottle of painkillers Caitlin gave her out of her pocket and struggles with the childproof cap.

"There has to be something that will prove it's us," Marcos says, gently taking the bottle from her to open it. "So maybe he can't see or hear, or smell as far as I can tell. What else do we have?"

Lorna swallows the pill and adjusts her sling. Her arm is killing her, but all she can think of is how much worse John must be hurting. He's not allowed the relief of pain pills, or even of knowing he's in a safe place. And if he really thinks them all dead...she can't imagine his pain.

"We don't have anything, Marcos," she sighs.

"We have our abilities."

Lorna shakes her head. "How will it prove anything to him? He can't see them. I used metal to get him back to bed earlier, but he didn't even react. He has no way to know what I move with my power or my hands."

"Maybe if I try to show him _my_ power..." Marcos starts.

"He won't see the light."

"But he can feel the heat, right?"

Lorna thinks about it. "I guess, if it's really hot. It's worth a try."

They go together inside the bedroom this time. John is lying curled up on the bed again, awake but immobile.

"John," Marcos calls softly. Lorna doesn't know if it's out of habit or a fool's hope that he might suddenly hear again.

John doesn't move. Zingo is lying against him on the bed, and John's hand is untangled in her fur. The dog has refused to leave John since Marcos let her in the room. She raises her head at Marcos's call.

John doesn't react until Marcos lays a hand on his arm. He jumps, and Lorna is ready to use the metal bracelets she made to stop him if he panics, but he just stills again, his body tensing.

"Who's here?" he asks, too loudly. "What do you want?"

Lorna watches as Marcos holds John's hands in his. John doesn't try to move away, even though he looks uncomfortable. Lorna wonders how much he craves human contact. The John she knows barely let anyone close enough to touch him.

Marcos's hands light up progressively until Lorna has to turn her eyes away. John also closes his eyes tightly and tries to get away, to cover them, but Marcos keeps holding onto him until John cries out and flails away.

Marcos lets go of his power and takes John's hand again to write. M-A-R-C−

"No!" John exclaims. "This isn't real! You're dead!"

'You', not 'he', Lorna notices. So he doesn't believe anymore that they're imposters.

He seems to think they're hallucinations, which is not much of an improvement.

"You're dead," John sobs, mouthing the words more than speaking them. "You're not here."

I A-M, Marcos tries.

"No! Why would you haunt me like this?" John shouts. "Why?"

His outburst turns into a coughing fit. John painfully presses his hand to his stomach, and Lorna can see the blood stain on the bandages grow with each cough. Caitlin warned it might happen, since she can't stitch the wounds close.

Clearly out of energy to scream anymore, John falls back against the pillow, tears coming down his cheeks.

"I saw you die," he murmurs. "I saw your body. I watched you all die."

* * *

Lorna stops talking just before the last thing John said before slipping back into a fevered slumbered, the line that keeps echoing in her head ever since. She won't repeat it to Clarice, not in front of all those strangers.

But it makes her choke all the same.

" _I can't do it anymore. I can't take it,"_ John murmured, defeated. _"Please, just let me end it."_

"We tried everything we could think of," she says. "But what the Frost and Reeva did destroyed him. Even if we end up getting through to him, I don't know if he can come back from this."

"Surely if he understands that you're alive−" Glow starts, but Lorna can see that Clarice already understands.

"They didn't just make him think we're dead," Lorna shakes her head. "We don't know what they put in his mind exactly, but we managed to find out a little. They played with his fears, with his guilt. They showed him the collapse of the mutant fight, and they made him think it was his fault. They didn't invent a story, they just let his nightmares play out as if they were reality. That's why he's resisting so much to everything we tried to show him. He's already given up."

 _Please, just let me end it._

"I can't imagine John giving up," Clarice says. "Not before there was really nothing else."

"I think for him, there _is_ nothing left," Marcos answers.

Lorna nods. "John never fought for himself. We all fight for our family, for our own safety, for a better world _we_ can live in. But John never did. Even as far as I remember, back when I met him for the first time, he was already fighting for everyone else. He'd break up fights, at the Institute, he would talk to bullies and get them to see the error in their way. Not for himself, but for the other kids. He enlisted because he thought he could help show humans that mutants could fight side by side with them. And then he lost his whole unit to a mistake a human made. Maybe on purpose."

"I didn't know that," Clarice says quietly.

"He doesn't talk about it. Ever. Pulse told me that, not John. Because you know what John did? He blamed himself for all of it. For not seeing it coming. And yet he never lost his faith that humans and mutants can live in peace together, that it's the only peace worth it. Not when the X-Men disappeared. Not when 7/15 happened. Not when the Marines took back his medals and kicked him out because he was a mutant. Not when Sentinel Services came for him, and captured Pulse. Not when they turned his partner into a monster, and then killed him."

"How? How did he still believe?"

Lorna turns her head brusquely. The question, unexpectedly, comes from Erg.

"I told you, he was never fighting for himself. He doesn't expect to see this world he wants to build. He's doing this for the children, for the mutants to come. That's why he was ready to die fighting. I think that's why he stormed the Inner Circle against all reason that night. He was desperate, seeing it all crumble, and Lauren accused him of failing them, then left. In his mind, her life was worth more than his. But if he really thinks that there's no one else left, he's not going to fight for himself."

"You want him to fight for me," Clarice understands.

"If there's even a chance−" Marcos says hoarsely.

"Of course. I'll come with you. I'll give it my best."

"Blink−" Erg start.

"Erg, this isn't about this place, and this isn't about your...rivalry, or whatever it is, with John. It's about his life. I'm not going to sit here and let him die."

Erg looks at her for a moment, then nods wordlessly.

* * *

John float. Sedatives, his brain understands, vaguely, like the thought comes from far away. The feel is very different from painkillers. The pain is still there, like a blanket of lead covering him, it's just impossible to tell where it's coming from anymore. He can't feel anything else.

The pain is gripping. It never ends, accompanying him in the little sleep he gets and slipping into his nightmares. He longs for the relief of painkillers, so much that it feels like a sickness to his stomach. He would give anything for a few pills.

For enough pills to slip into a coma, maybe. It would be much easier, much more peaceful than this. He wouldn't have to feel the pain constricting his chest, the one that doesn't really come from the wounds in his stomach.

He might not wake up, but that might be for the best.

There's a hand inside his. It holds him tight, tight enough that he can distinguish it even from the fog. He moves his hand slightly, and the other hand responds by squeezing harder.

There's a body pressed against his. No, two. One on each side. Marcos and Lorna, John recognizes. They've done this before, when he was sick or grieving. He feels safer, suddenly, squeezed between his friends.

Wait, this isn't right.

Marcos and Lorna are dead. John killed Lorna with his own hands.

They can't be here.

This isn't real.

But then what's real anymore? The shadow of a life he has left, the empty shell that's his body, is not worth seeking reality for. John takes the hallucination, the familiar sensations his brain is making up to protect itself. He has nothing else.

Maybe he can enjoy feeling his friends close, just for a moment, even if they aren't really there.

Despite the taste of ashes in his mouth.

He feels tears run down the sides of his face.

* * *

Once they're far enough out of the tunnels that she's sure no one is watching them, Clarice stops. Marcos and Lorna, who have been following her through the maze that are the sewers, come up short behind her. She turns toward them.

"What do you _really_ want?" she asks.

"What do you mean?" Marcos frowns.

"If all you wanted was for me to come back with you, you would have just said John was hurt, started with the end. You know I would have come. You wouldn't have taken this much time to tell me the story, and you wouldn't have accepted an audience. You wanted them to hear it. Why?"

Marcos and Lorna looks at each other.

"We...we want you to convince Erg to let John come down here to recover," Marcos says.

"Here? Why?"

"He's highly vulnerable right now. Reeva knows where we are. We hit her hard, but it's only a matter of time before she hits us back. And when she does, we won't be able to protect John."

"I see," Clarice says. "But Erg is pretty strict about people coming down here. I mean, you've seen."

"I have," Marcos says. "But this is supposed to be a shelter. Is he going to turn away someone who badly needs his help?"

"I don't know," Clarice answers. "John got hurt fighting a battle that Erg doesn't think is worth fighting. And the rules are there for protection. So...I don't know."

"Protection," Marcos mutters.

"I know what you're thinking. And I'll tell you, I don't like the brand either. But it's Erg's place. Erg's rules. I can't go against that."

"What if he asks you to choose? Between John and this place."

"She's already chosen," Lorna reminds Marcos.

"Right," Marcos says bitterly.

"I love John, I really do," Clarice bites her lip. "But you have to understand...this is exactly why I left. He was running himself into the ground and I couldn't watch him anymore."

Marcos turns away. "We're not here to get into an argument with you, or try to prove you wrong. Besides, you were right, he did run himself into the ground. But you know what makes him do that? Grief."

"After Pulse died...I mean, when we thought he died, John went without food or sleep for two weeks before he collapsed," Lorna adds quietly.

Clarice looks at her sharply. "I didn't know that," she says. "But it doesn't change the fact that I had to think about myself too. I had to get out before it destroyed me."

"Maybe you did," Marcos nods. "But...he basically threw himself into the lion's nest after you left. He was grieving for Evangeline and the others, for your relationship−"

"What are you trying to say?" Clarice interrupts him, annoyed. But her voice but wavering. She's not going to let Marcos guilt-trip her for leaving, but that's only because she does it just fine by herself.

"What do you think he's trying to do now that he thinks we're all dead?"

Clarice takes a sharp intake of breath. She understood from their words that they think John has given up on living, but is Marcos implying that he actively wants to die?

"Do you mean he's...starving himself to death?"

"I don't know. But I'm not sure he _wants_ to heal. He needs you, Clarice."

Clarice bites her lip, shaking her head in dismay.

"How have you been communicating with him?" she asks. "Since that first day?"

"Badly," Lorna sighs. "He's pretty much cut off, it's been hard. I've tried writing in his hand more, and he seems to understand, but he refuses to believe that it's me. Or Marcos. Anyone who's tried, Caitlin, Lauren, Reed, he thinks we're all dead."

"But not me? Why?"

"I don't know either," Lorna shakes her head. "But he keeps calling for you. Look, honestly, for all we know he thinks you're dead too, and he's just dreaming about you more. But it's worth a try, right?"

"Sure," Clarice answers. She's terrified, though. Of what she'll find, the state John will be in. She's even more terrified that he won't recognize her. That he might be so far gone that she can't get though him.

She can barely imagine what Lorna and Marcos have been going through.

She can't imagine at all what John has been going through.

She feels the knot in her throat, the voice in her ear that screams it's all her fault, grow another inch.

* * *

Did I make myself cry writing this? Absolutely.

I hope you enjoyed it anyway. Tell me if you did! Will Clarice get through to John? Or is it already too late?


	14. Chapter 14

Clarice finally comes back, but John is far from out of the woods.

* * *

"Lauren?" Marcos calls, opening the door. "We're here."

Lorna waves Clarice in in front of her. It's strange, coming back to this apartment. It's only been three weeks, but it may as well have been a lifetime. It already doesn't feel like home anymore, but then neither do the tunnels.

Clarice feels more and more like nowhere can be home without John.

And she knows he's here, but it doesn't feel like it. The stuff littered over the coffee table and the couch is Lorna's, not John's. Nothing else has changed, but it still feels wrong, empty.

Lauren comes out of the bedroom, carefully closing the doors behind her, and freezes when she sees Clarice.

For a moment, it looks like she doesn't know whether she should hug her or run away. Clarice lets her make the decision. After all, she's the one who left without saying goodbye.

Lauren turns cold instead. "Clarice," she says with a nod.

"Lauren," Clarice answers in kind, but hopefully more warmly.

They look at each other for a moment, then Lauren breaks eye contact and turns to Marcos and Lorna. "I'll be upstairs if you need me," she says.

And just like that, she walks away. Clarice swallows hard, near tears for the umpteenth time today. Neither Marcos nor Lorna make any comment, and she's grateful for that small blessing.

"Come on," Lorna says, waving toward the closed bedroom door.

Clarice steels herself and approaches. She looks on as Lorna opens one of the door just a fraction and ushers her in, but all she can see is a vague shape on the unmade bed.

"Didn't you say he was blind?" she asks, noticing the way Lorna doesn't turn on the lights, although it's nearly fully dark in the room.

"It turns out you can be both blind and hypersensitive to light," she answers. "And deaf and hypersensitive to noise. It's been...complicated."

Clarice nods and takes a deep breath. She walks toward the bed carefully, though she knows this room like the back of her hand.

It's changed, though, she notices. The bedside table on John's side is missing, and an IV pole is standing in its place. The small dresser is also gone, and the radiator seems to have been ripped off the wall.

Clarice frowns, but she doesn't care about that right now. She can't tear her eyes away from John. He's lying on his side, his back to them. He's shirtless, but most of his torso and his visible arm are heavily bandaged. Clarice thinks he's sleeping at first, but Zingo, lying against his side, shifts slightly and he runs a hand though her fur.

"Zingo hasn't left his side, and she's the only one John doesn't reject," Lorna explains.

Clarice can tell when Zingo notices her. She raises her head and wiggles her tail happily, though without ever trying to move away from John.

"Zingo?" John mutters.

He's alert, suddenly, sitting up with a wince. Zingo barks once at Clarice, as if welcoming her home, but John pressed his hands over his ears with a moan. Zingo immediately nudges him, worried. He buries a hand back in her fur.

"Who's here?" he asks, his voice hoarse and too loud.

Clarice hesitantly comes closer.

"John−" she starts. He doesn't react.

Clarice sighs. It's one thing to be told he can't hear or see, and another entirely to see his eyes look wildly around the room, never settling on her.

"Zingo," she says instead. "It's good to see you, girl."

She doesn't dare pet the dog first, now knowing what John might react to, so she kneels down and puts her hand on John's, over Zingo's fur.

John freezes. "Who is it?" he asks again, this time in a barely distinct whisper.

Clarice goes with her instinct and turns his hand in hers.

C-L-, she starts writing, taking care to press enough that he can feel it through his dense skin.

"No," John shakes his head. "No. You can't be here. You don't want to see me."

Clarice sighs sadly. "I'm here," she says, but it's of no use. John keeps shaking his head and muttering.

"He's done some version of that with all of us, but I was hoping it would be different with you," Lorna says from the door, sounding disappointed. "He seems to think we're either hallucinations, or people trying to confuse him. Depending on how lucid he is."

Clarice bites her lip, grasping for ideas. Lighting up suddenly, she grabs the hand John removed from her grasp again and guides it up to her face. John resists a little at first, but he almost involuntarily leans into the contact. He must be craving for a human presence, Clarice guesses.

She brings his hand all the way up to her ear, pushing her hair back. John takes a sharp intake of breath in surprise when he feels it.

"Clarice?" he asks softly after a moment of exploring the shape of her pointed ear. It's like he wants to make sure.

"It's me, John," Clarice says uselessly. She guides his other hand to her face, and puts her own around his neck, in between the abrasions on his skin.

"Clarice," John murmurs. "You're really here." He mouths something else, but no sound come out.

Clarice brings their brows together.

"I'm really here. I'm so sorry," she adds.

John smiles sadly. "I can feel you talk, but I don't understand," he says.

Clarice sobs. John strokes her cheeks with his thumbs, finding the tears. "Don't cry," he murmurs. But he's crying too.

"You're not supposed to be here," he says. "You said−"

I-M S-O-R-R-Y, Clarice writes on his hand, taking it off her face. It takes a while−too long, she has to write several letters twice because John frowns in incomprehension−but he wait patiently until she's done.

"You were right," he hangs his head. "It's all my fault."

"What?" Clarice asks uselessly. What does John think she said to him? She thought this was about her leaving, but it sounds like something else.

She looks over to Lorna, who is still leaning on the door frame. She shrugs. "The Frosts messed with his mind," she says. "Who knows what they put in there."

N-O-T Y-O-U- Clarice starts, but John stops her by sandwiching her hand with his. "It doesn't matter now," he says. "They're all gone."

W-H-O-? Clarice writes. Lorna's told her John thinks she and Marcos are dead, but if John could tell them more, maybe they could show him it's not true.

John frowns. "Marcos. The Struckers. Lorna. You know it. You told me to finish it."

"Finish−what?" Clarice blurts out, surprised.

Lorna shakes her head. "He never said anything about that before," she says.

"I did it," John rambles, almost for himself−except he probably can't hear his own voice, can he? "I had to. You know I had to."

Clarice strokes his hands wordlessly, unable to think of anything to do that could appease the anguish in his voice−or help them understand what he's saying.

"She was going to… She was… I had to end it. I killed her, Clarice. I fucking killed my best friend," John sobs.

Clarice hears Lorna take a shaky breath. "He thinks−" she starts, but her voice breaks. "He thinks he killed me?"

"I don't know," Clarice murmurs. "Yes. I think so. I don't−"

"Oh my God," Lorna murmurs, letting herself slide down against the door frame.

Clarice hugs John tightly, wishing she could tell him that Lorna is right here. But she can't, not yet. John is too doubtful, too shaky. He doesn't believe his own mind. She needs to gain his trust first, make him accept that she's really back, or he'll reject everything.

"I killed her," John repeats. Clarice buries her head in his shoulder, watching Lorna weep. She watched John mourn for her for months, and yet it's like now they're finally reunited, they've never been farther apart.

Lorna meets her gaze, tears running down her face. This moment of communion in pain and shock is the closest Clarice has ever felt to Lorna, the woman she never really got to know before she walked out on them. Clarice never really understood John's deep love for her that had him still looking for her desperately after months of absence, but she can see the same love reciprocated in Lorna's eyes, as she processes the idea that John thinks he killed her.

Clarice only moves when she feels John sag in her arms. Without letting go of him, she takes a proper look at him. He's lost a lot of weight, more than Clarice thought was possible in just three weeks. Despite his strength, he feels almost feeble in her grasp, his hands trembling uncontrollably.

"Oh my God, John," she murmurs. "What happened to you?"

She knows, and knowing just makes it worse. John's eyes should be brimming with pain and anger−instead they're empty. Not just unseeing−empty. It hits her like a punch in the gut.

She's too late, isn't she?

John's hand goes to her ear again. "You can't really be here," he murmurs. "You don't want to see me again."

"I'm really here," Clarice says desperately. "Please, John, I'm really here."

"What I did was unforgivable," John continues over her. "You wouldn't come back."

Clarice looks at Lorna again, but the other woman is still in shock, sitting on the floor sobbing.

"I'm tired," John says. He sounds delirious more than anything, too far gone from reality. He lets himself lie back down. He still weighs too much for Clarice to hold him back, his body density still present. "Please make it stop."

"Oh, John," Clarice sobs. I-M H-E-, she starts, but John pulls his hand away.

"Make it stop," he repeats. "Just let me go. I'm too tired."

"I won't," Clarice says−and it gives her a strange sort of determination. She turns her head to find Lorna looking straight at her. "I won't give up on you. We'll find a way to get through to you."

* * *

"He's been like this the whole time?" Clarice asks a bit later. She hasn't left John, her hands still in his, but he's fallen asleep. Lorna is sitting on the edge of the bed farthest from John, not wanting to risk disturbing him, and Marcos has joined them at the door.

"Pretty much," Lorna answers. "He sleeps a lot, and when he's not sleeping he's not responding half the time. Dissociating, I think. He doesn't have a lot to anchor himself to."

"And you haven't seen any improvement?"

"It's hard to tell if his senses are healing, but his body isn't. It's more like the opposite. And as far as his mind goes...well, you've seen. He's not rational. We've tried everything, but every time we had hope that he'd recognize us, he just thought he was hallucinating. He keeps having nightmares and flashbacks, and I don't think they're helping him figure out what's real."

Clarice bites her lip. Even in his sleep, John is frowning, and his hands haven't really stopped shaking. He looks pained.

"What's up with the...bracelets?" she points at the metal bands around John's upper arms.

"We've had to...restrain him a bit," Lorna answers. "He's figured out where he is by now, but he won't let any of us close since the first day, and he tried to escape or fight back a few too many times. Sometimes he'll wake up from nightmares really confused, and we've had to remove the furniture because he destroyed most of it. This is the only way I could come up with to keep everyone safe but still let him have some freedom."

"And when you're not there like today?"

"Lauren can wrap her shields around the bracelets and do essentially the same thing, but she can't hold him for long. Her powers are still recovering from what happened."

"His arms−"

"Lauren and Andy did that when they cut him off the table he was strapped to," Marcos says. "It's mostly superficial, but his body isn't healing like it usual. They should have been nearly healed by now."

"We found something out," Lorna tells Marcos quietly. The vibration of anguish in her voice is almost too much to bear.

"What?"

"John recognized Clarice for a bit before he started thinking he was hallucinating again, but he told her something. He seems to think that−" Lorna's voice breaks.

"He thinks he killed Lorna," Clarice finishes for her. "That she was going to...do something, and he had kill her."

Marcos looks like he wants to throw up, which is not far from how Clarice already feels. He puts a hand over his mouth. "Shit," he murmurs. He opens his arms to Lorna, who buries her face in him chest. "I fucking hate the Frosts."

"You and me both," Clarice murmurs.

Lorna doesn't say anything, and Clarice wonders how she reconciles having lived with those people for months with what they did to John. She remembers John's despair, after he saw Lorna in the psychiatric hospital.

She suddenly remembers their conversation, the night before that.

"Oh my God," she mutters.

"What?" Marcos asks.

"You said you think the Frosts took his fears and made them real for him, right?"

Lorna nods, frowning.

"I don't think John told anyone else, but...one of his deepest fears the last few months was that he'd have to..."

"To what?"

"When he went to see Evangeline, she said that if you stayed with the Inner Circle, he'd probably have to kill you and Andy."

Lorna opens her mouth in shock.

"What?" Marcos reacts. "He never said−"

"Of course he didn't," Clarice interrupts him. "How do you think you'd have taken it? But he tortured himself with it for so long. He kept having nightmares about it, and...I don't know, I think part of the reason he drove us away was that he was trying to...prepare himself. I didn't really see it at the time, but...it was eating him inside."

Marcos closes his eyes, as if in grief. "I missed so much, didn't I?" he says. "We should have been there for each other, but I could only think about myself."

"Evangeline−" Lorna starts, angrily.

"Evangeline is dead," Clarice stops her. "I don't think now is the best time to assign blame, or God knows we can all take our share."

"You're right," Lorna deflates. "I just...I had no idea John was thinking that way. When I left...it was never _against_ you, and I could never fight you, not really. I just wanted to do more than we could do with the Underground. I never thought it would come to this."

"None of us did," Clarice says, looking back at John's sleeping form. "I thought I left because I couldn't watch him tear himself apart anymore, but knowing that I wasn't there when he needed me is even worse."

She doesn't feel the urge to defend her decisions in front of Lorna and Marcos anymore, not when she sees the raw guilt and grief on their face.

It's like looking in a mirror.

* * *

I hope you liked this reunion, though it was dark and heavy. I don't yet have a next chapter, and very little time or drive to write more at the moment, but I still hope to be able to continue this soon.

Please tell me what you think! Comments are always a huge encouragement.


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